


Stoichiometry

by hegemony



Series: To the Hounds, To the Daily Mail [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, Assassins & Hitmen, Cars, Forced Orgasm, Foreign Language, Gags, Knifeplay, M/M, Multiple Orgasms, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Press and Tabloids, Recreational Drug Use, Road Trips, Role Reversal, Roleplay, Rough Sex, Tantra, Tantric Sex, World Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-14
Updated: 2012-08-14
Packaged: 2017-11-12 04:18:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 49,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/486598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hegemony/pseuds/hegemony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Tony first cooked up this trip at the breakfast table, he didn't expect to find the way the puzzle pieces of Bruce fit together. Now with Monaco on the horizon, the very fabric of this relationship could pull Tony apart if he doesn't work for it.</p><p>The sequel to "<a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/404787">A Box Step Suite</a>"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Covers several prompts from the Livejournal community 'Avengerkink', as well as lots of ridiculousness of its own breed. And really, you can blame this on a summer spent looking at moody pictures of Mark Ruffalo and compulsively Google-mapping cities in Western Europe while listening to a wordless soundtrack that would likely stick in Tony's craw. 
> 
> Thank you to Stephanometra for handholding and coddling, and Yugimutos for connecting dots I didn't even see.

**Goodwood House**

Bruce looks like a Muppet standing there, thinking in the shower stall. He's watching Tony through the glass wall, head tilted and lips tucked in and it takes everything he has for Tony not to roll over in laughter because it's seriously just that silly but no. No, that's Bruce's serious face. 

It would be bad to laugh at the rage monster's ‘serious’ face. 

"So what brought this up, Tony?" He asks.

"It's been an incredibly long time since you've had a vacation," Tony shrugs. "A week away from the tower would be good for us. No, two, two weeks away from the tower. I was thinking I could show you the world?"

"You did not just ask me a question using an Aladdin quote," Bruce says, wiping the water from his eyes and the glass so he can see through the fog. "I've also seen the world. I'm not really impressed anymore." 

"But maybe you could be," Tony returns. Bruce looks at him as if he's already tired of Tony's smart mouth this morning. "Come on, I bet you've never been to Amsterdam, and I know you've never been to Monaco. We're so close I can taste the canapés. We should go. Let's go." 

"So we can crash a few parties and you can show me how rich you are? You said a weekend, Tony. A _weekend_." Bruce says. "I had things I was working on when I gave my assistants off, you know." 

"But you picked those kids yourself," he replies. "They’re totally autonomous while you're out being awesome, so why can’t you be out and awesome with me? Moreover, one of the labs is in Antwerp. You could check in and make sure nobody's stolen your ideas or blown anything up without your being there.”

The shower turns off, and Bruce reaches for a towel. Tony hasn't really spent time looking at Bruce naked, even though the guy is _always_ naked. He's defined but not cut, black-brown hair growing in a pattern down his chest that looks almost manscaped. Almost. 

"Stop objectifying me," Bruce says plainly as he hunches over and covers himself with an awkward hand. "It's really hypocritical for you to be asking me to take a few weeks off from work." 

"I'm just appreciating the natural growth pattern of your body hair. It's impressive," Tony deadpans. "And I’m not asking you to break up with science. You can have all the video calls you want, I just want you to come to Monaco with me. Just… do this with me. Please." 

Bruce lifts his eyes, a calm and skeptical brown as he leans against the glass stall door and wraps the towel around his hair. His posture deflates gently, and he purses his lips. "Let me make a few calls." 

"And here I thought you were afraid to be with me in small spaces," Tony says. 

"After the last few days, I know what I need to be afraid of when I’m around you, Tony," Bruce replies, flatly. He pauses, thinks it over and smiles a little, too. "And it is incredibly hard to look a gift horse in the mouth, I suppose." 

"Even harder if you mean a gift trip to Monaco," Tony corrects. 

"Semantics," Bruce snorts.

"And the chance to fuck me into the mattress as many times as you can muster. We could even give the big guy a crack at it, if you play your cards right." 

Bruce stares Tony down like he’s trying to find the words. "While the big guy thinks you're attractive, I think you're romanticizing how enjoyable that would be. There'd be more smashing and…"

"Less smashing?'" Bruce groans at the entendre as Tony’s hands fly up in his own defense, "what? That's what the kids call it these days! I asked your lab assistants on purpose that one time. They all said they wanted to smas-" 

Bruce's hand rises and he sounds frustrated already, "don't finish that sentence. I’ll come with you, so how are we going?" 

"Road trip?" 

"As long as we listen to something with more variety than your AC/DC playlist, because it got really old really fast last time," Bruce shrugs. 

"We'll flip a coin, it'll be fine," Tony says. "I'll put on some pants, get us a ride. You figure out how we get there?"

Bruce nods, confident. "Can you get something that doesn't make it so obvious you're a narcissist?" 

"Already taking all the fun outta things, Banner," Tony groans. 

"Tony, I don't think you fully appreciate how kept I look right now,” Bruce points out. “I just can’t help myself.” 

"Fine, I'll get something modest," Tony replies, flicking three fingers up in a mock salute. "Scouts honor." 

"Well, if you're going to be a Girl Scout about it, I'm almost honor-bound to go," Bruce deadpans, and then blushes when Tony turns his hand and starts rocking it back and forth, waggling his eyebrows. "Go put some pants on and try to be a normal tycoon for once, instead of an eccentric one?" 

" _Tycoon_?" Tony asks as he opens the bathroom door and struts out, grinning with his victory. "You and Steve need ground rules for the things you suggest each other read, Banner. I’m in no mood for 1920s fuckery while we’re on vacation." 

Bruce's low chuckle is faint once Tony's out of the bathroom, but it's all the reassurance Tony needs. 

 

 

 

 

**Claypit Lane**

It's a grey, sexy thing: all carbon fiber, aluminum, and sloping lines like the spine of a body on hands and knees. Tony knows its their ride the second he sees it sitting there, wedged between an old Jag and an even older Jag. It beckons him, he has to have it, and his fingers itch as he whips out his phone and starts pulling up stats. Given the fact it's a few years old, the offer he makes is likely outrageous, but the owner's attached and needs the extra push. 

The paperwork is easy to draw up, there are brokers everywhere here, and he even haggles out a test drive on the hill, footloose and cavalier. He skims the title and work history, dials up his personal accountant, and does the transfer over high tea. After the theatrics and negotiations, he calls Bruce. 

"Seriously, an Aston Martin?" Bruce asks the first time he sees the thing, hands shoved in shark-grey pockets. He looks bashful and a little reluctant. Also, kind of amused. "What is this, Casino Royale?" 

"Well, unless you've spent any significant time driving in Europe, _I'll_ be the one doing most of the leg work. So yes, I think it's fair to call me James Bond in this case," Tony nods. "I guess that would make you the Bond girl." 

"I guess I could fill out a white bikini well enough, although I'm pretty sure the body hair would scar bystanders for life," Bruce replies casually. Tony wants to laugh but Bruce's brow is furrowed and he's doing that thing that's not quite pouting, "And I have driven in Europe- Italy, mostly. I just asked you to buy us something modest, is all." 

"How is this not modest?" Tony asks, gesturing with his teacup. "Considering the cars I have back home, we can both agree this is downright pedestrian." 

"You and I have very different definitions of the word 'pedestrian,'" Bruce sighs. 

“If I knew you were going to get huffy, I would have bought the Bentley instead.” Tony shrugs. He looks down at his teacup, the sweet milky dregs of English afternoon tea hugging to the bottom. "I swear they put crack in this tea." 

"Because that solves all the problems, here," Bruce amends, his voice dripping with sarcasm. It's a good look on him, with the whole wind-tossed hair and Italian suit thing. "Tony, I sometimes worry about your wealth stunting your personal development past the age of 17." 

"You know, Doc, I get that a lot. Stand over there. Yeah, like that." Tony orders as he uses his free hand to push Banner over toward the car and takes the last swallow from the cup. Bruce resists for a second and then goes willingly, a few steps over to the right. 

"What?" 

"Nothing, you just look very 'disgruntled male model' right now. If you bust out some 'Blue Steel,' I would be incredibly pleased," Bruce lowers his head and chuckles, darkly. "Do you always laugh at jokes when you're the butt of them?"

"I'm just constantly surprised that you always get what you want," Bruce says, softly. 

"Of course I do," Tony nods firmly. "No compromises." 

The look in Bruce's eyes tells Tony he's probably going to change that. 

Bruce slinks away from him, closer and closer to the car until he's brushing carefully against it, pulling the hunch of his shoulders back, lifting his head to take a deep breath, landing in the kind of pose that's all seduction in the angle of his hips and the cross of his calves. His facial expression melts into a smolder as he slides his glasses from his face, bends his wrists so they'll fit against the slope of the car. Once the illusion's complete, he looks like a man with exquisite taste in charge of the world around him. It looks charming, almost natural.

It's not like he's never compromised in his life, but a masochistic little voice in Tony's head tells him to not bend until Bruce _makes_ him, not until Bruce fits him into this illusion, too. 

"Like this?" Banner asks, seductive and low. 

"You're gonna end up in the papers again if you keep posing like that, Banner," Tony jokes. 

"Isn't that what you want, Mr. Stark?" Bruce replies, easily. "And don't you _always_ get what you want, no compromises?" 

"None." 

The moment hangs for a second, the snarl echoing between them. Tony bites the inside of his lip, incredibly jealous that others are able to see this show and all the imperfections that make it even better. Anywhere else and Tony's sure he would be down on his knees, unable to breathe as he takes Bruce in tribute. 

"It'll work just fine, Tony," Bruce says, turning around as the heat between them evaporates as quickly as it arose. "It's a very nice car." 

"Knew you'd like her."

"Three hour drive," Bruce changes the subject. 

"London?" Tony asks. He could have a good layover in London, he thinks. The last time he was there, it was with Pepper, the two of them wrapped so tightly in each other that they couldn't even claw their way out of the West End. This would be refreshing, pub hopping and a late night curry down in the city center, temptation carried upon an eastbound wind. It would be perfect. 

Bruce shakes his head, puts his glasses back on. "Harwich and the boat that'll take us straight to the Netherlands. 12 hours across the channel," Bruce smiles the grin of a man with priorities. "Big guy and I tried to find something that'd get us there without freaking out." 

"You're probably really good at that by now, aren't you?" Tony says, fondly. 

"It's a gift. It won't be the personalized accommodations you're used to, though. You'll have to be flexible." 

"Where's the fun in that?" Tony asks. 

Bruce stares at his shoes for a moment, his jaw tight like he's already regretting saying yes. Tony walks up to him, wraps an arm around the trunk of Bruce's body, grounding them together as he watches Bruce deflate a bit. Looking down at the bracelet, he can see Bruce's heartbeat in double-time, and he can't tell if it's in anger or embarrassment or arousal or any number of things. 

"I'll spoil you rotten once we get to Monaco," Tony whispers like it's a secret, as if he's confessing to murder. "Until then, I'm just your driver."

"With a big mouth and an even bigger ego," Bruce mumbles. 

"We could buy a gag, if you want," he shrugs. Bruce's eyes fly up, clear green. Tony slows down, takes deeper breaths in hopes that Bruce will follow, match him inhale for exhale. "Relax, I trust you." 

It works, and Bruce uses the breath and the hand still on the car as grounding, walking back down from the temptation. "Because you in a suit and a ball gag driving me across Europe in this car doesn't sound like the set up for an incredibly well financed soft porno."

"That's the reason why I put it out there, big guy." Bruce's laughter comes out in a choke that rattles the teacup in Tony's other hand. "Oh come on, you know you've had worse offers for rides, Banner." 

"Well, when you're right…" Bruce trails off, sighing. "So when are we leaving?"

"Show ends at four. Was asked to keep it here until then." 

The car is not the center of attention at the show: far from it. Most people are over towards the Italian cars at the far end of the field, or the Germans just off to the other side of the path. They have been freaking out the old men crowded down around the Morgans at the end of the row for a while now, though. Tony thinks if those guys are gonna fantasize about going 80 miles per hour in a wooden car, they can withstand a little homoeroticism. 

"How gracious of you," Banner murmurs. "Last boat leaves at midnight. First boat after that is seven AM." 

"We could see how far we go, if you want." 

"Yes, Tony," he smiles, fragile and sharpened with double and triple meaning. "I think that’d be best." 

 

 

 

 

 

**Clacket Lane**

The sun's still high enough for Tony to pull up near a picnic table and walk around the car a few times. 

Bruce kicks a thumb back toward the service building, cliché pile of bricks it is, "I'm gonna get some coffee. Want anything?" 

"Whatever you get should be fine," Tony nods. 

Tony gets a bunch of compliments on his ride and secretly beams over every single one of them. He even lets a group of ten year olds sneak a peek inside. People seem very long for the wear. Passers by flit eyes across his face without quite knowing 'who' he is, now that the facial hair is popular in every barbershop across the world. Tony considers that there might be something to shaving it down into something less ostentatious.

Bruce comes back out with two incredibly loud-looking cups of coffee, covered with flimsy plastic tops. The corner of a Krispy Kreme bag hangs from two fingers.

"Sorry about the coffee. I trust American brand names more than I should sometimes," he says, softly. "It was either this or something named Beano's." 

"You totally made the right choice," Tony says, taking the cup before it's offered to him. He knows Bruce knows the 'don't hand me things' rule, but the guy never seems to care. Maybe it's casual resistance to Tony’s wealthy eccentricity, but maybe it’s all about seeing if handing Tony the wrong thing will send him on a tantrum. 

They sit on the picnic table, looking out at the parking lot as people cycle in and out. The coffee's a little burnt, overly sweet but caffeine's caffeine, even when it's from McDonalds. 

There is no attractive way to eat a doughnut. 

“So, why?” Bruce finally asks.

“Why what? Why did I want to do this?” Tony returns. 

“Why did you decide you wanted to do it this way?” Bruce repeats. “I figured you would’ve grabbed a helicopter and dumped us off in the Riviera in like, 15 minutes.” 

“Since when did you become so bad at math?” Tony asks. “Also, why didn’t you mention it when I could have requested the plane?” 

"I'm not sure if you've noticed, but I've started dating this offensively rich guy in the last few months and I'm trying not to become a sugar baby," Bruce points out. "I'm really sure asking him to gas up his big, strong plane and drop us off in one of the richest countries of the world so I can work on my tan is really constructive to that goal." 

“I’m willing to admit that I’m surprised you even know what a sugar baby is, honestly,” Tony jokes. 

“Ha ha,” Bruce deadpans. “Besides, I’m a fan of escapes that put you off the grid instead of ones that put you on the map. Occupational hazard.” 

The statement darkens the planes of Bruce’s features, makes him look even older and full of unkempt character. Tony asks, “How much did you travel before the big guy?” 

“Enough,” Bruce nods, “gave a few talks on those papers you like so much. Never got much time to spend much time in the places we were talking about. More Berlin, Geneva, a little bit of Rome.” 

“I think you’ll like Amsterdam. Bit of a party city, but your kind of party.” 

“Stoners everywhere and sex in the windows?” Bruce asks, awkwardly. He looks down at his shoes, quirks his lip, “wouldn’t quite qualify that as my kinda party, but I suppose I could adjust.”

“Well, I meant smart people talking about lots of incredibly geeky things. Diamond factories and lots of bikes and levels and water,” Tony shrugs. “Tons of things to do, places to go.” 

“Then we’ll have to make a list, if we’re only there for a day or two. JARVIS suggested it was about a hour’s drive from the boat. It gets there pretty early,” Bruce sighs. 

“We could always make a pit stop in the Hague,” Tony grins. 

“Let’s not and say we did,” Bruce murmurs. Tony wants to joke or ask what Bruce is so anxious about, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t attempt to claw the word ‘criminal’ free from Bruce’s throat. They fall into silence. 

It's an hour and a half straight through to the coast. They'll cut it close but there’s a good chance they’ll be able to leave England tonight. Bruce pulls out a coin from his change and flips it to figure out who gets to pick the music. Banner wins, which means they'll be listening to eighties Alt-punk until they stop again. He flicks out his Stark phone and goes through his library, building a playlist like he's been thinking about it all day, sucking errant traces of doughnut glaze from the fingertips of his other hand. 

Tony gets back into the Aston, shoves the key into its cutesy little hole. Bruce slides his coffee into the cup holder and pokes around at the stereo until everything's calibrated and connected. "This better be good, Banner. I haven't tested the speakers yet." 

The little speakers pop up from the dashboard, and Bruce takes off his glasses, slides them back into his pocket. "Think I'd lead you and your new toy astray?" 

"No, you'd just lead us back to the 80s," he says. "Obviously." 

Bruce snorts, and Tony can already hear the low rolling baseline of 'Fascination Street' echoing in the tiny cabin. 

"Can this work?" Bruce asks as they pull back out to the highway. 

"Yeah," the corners of Tony's mouth turn upward as he gets up to speed and falls right into the fast lane, "this can work." 

 

 

 

**Port of Harwich ******

"You and I are going to have to work on your taste in music. That was the most metrosexual hour and forty-five minutes in my life to date, Banner." 

"Better than cock rock," Bruce points out. "Pull over there, I'll get a cabin." 

He slides out of the car and shuts the door, walking into the station. Tony looks down, flicks off the radio, and slides Bruce's phone into his jacket. They won't be in here much longer, anyway. 

"Captain's class alright with you?" Bruce asks when he returns. 

"As long as it's got a bed and is bigger than a shoebox," Tony replies. 

Dinner goes by in a blur because that's what happens when you put Fish and Chips in front of starving Americans at 10 at night. Most people are already tucked into their rooms, trying to fall asleep before the boat begins to move, so they dawdle from the makeshift 50's diner over toward the makeshift 90's bar. It’s late enough that the music has been lowered to a whisper, a lilting generic bubblegum melody.

They sit near a window. The lights have been drawn dim, soft halos of florescent white popping against vivid blue walls and industrial red carpet. Tony watches as Bruce looks out the window, the sweating glass of beer in front of him light brown. They haven't left port yet, so the spotlights along the harbor catch the ocean waves, defining them.

Tony can't tell if the low droning hum is Bruce or the engine idling as it prepares to disembark. Either way, it makes him antsy, full of energy he doesn't know how to work off, in a quiet isolated place with not much to focus on. His leg bounces under the table, the squeak of Italian leather just a little too high pitched to match the engine's drone. 

Bruce gives him the side-eye. 

"Everything alright?" he asks. 

Tony shakes his head, pushes a hand through his hair and wiggles further down into the cheap pub seat. He sits back, scratches an itch through his pants and pulls out his phone, checking e-mails, flicking through his feeds. He bites his lip, his leg bouncing again. 

Bruce turns to him, catching the corner of Tony's eye. He leans forward. 

"Do something with me, Fidget Man" he says. 

"Something like what, Green Lama? Yeah, didn't know I knew about that comic book Rogers gave you, didja?" Tony asks. The corners of Bruce's mouth turn downward, but he starts shaking in laughter, anyway. "Gonna break your face like that, _Jethro_." 

"Yeah, yeah," Bruce says, "sit up straight." 

Tony does as told. Bruce takes off his glasses and follows until they're eye to eye. There's just enough light over their table to allow Tony to see the endless brown of Bruce's eyes. It's not enough to show the texture of the irises, the slow bleed of green annoyance. 

The boat horn sounds from far away. 

Bruce's pattern of breathing is off, too short inhales with too long exhales. Tony matches up with him anyway. 

There's a lurch in the background as the boat starts to move. It causes them both to grab for their drinks. Afterward, Tony's focus narrows onto the way they're looking at each other. It's uncomfortable. It's silly. 

In Bruce's eyes, Tony can see awe and worship and maybe the tiniest urge to consume. His fingers itch as he keeps looking, staring, _watching_. He reaches out, wraps fingers around the wrist Bruce is using to hold his beer still. 

"Tony," he warns. 

"Teach me?" Tony asks.

Bruce breaks his gaze, eyes returning out to the sea as the port slowly drifts from view. A quick glance over at the bar shows they're completely alone, the bar empty. Down the way, the bartender's back is turned and she's leaning against the counter as she cleans glasses and watches a late night replay of Graham Norton. 

“Don’t you ever quiet down?” Bruce asks. 

"Never really had a need to, before. You do a lot of things different, though. Would you ever," Tony wracks his brain for the best word, "train me? If I asked?" 

Bruce's eyes snap shut, his fingers clenching against the glass as he sighs, deep and long and shaking. "Why do you do that?" 

"Because I trust you. And I want to know what you know. Sit at the foot of the master and all that jazz, right?" 

"I’m not your master, Tony. I’m not going to force you into things," Bruce shakes his head, "Stop asking me to treat you like I own you." 

"That's got less to do with the words I say and more the ones you hear, don't you think?" Tony smirks as he leans in. "You're just so reluctant sometimes that I…" 

“Imagine a mountain, Tony. Most people just go around mountains, some go through. But what you’re asking for is like…trying to climb the steepest part of the mountain without even so much as a rope. You’ll get to the top, but then you find the steepest part of the other side for the way down. That’s what you’d be training for,” Bruce says. “It’s not sexy, Tony. It’s not fashionable and if you’re not careful it will lead you to something so dark within yourself that you won’t be able to shut it up. It’ll be like stripping every defense, even the ones you didn’t know you had. You’ll be in shambles." 

"So you'd beat me into a pulp?" Tony snorts, looking down into his whiskey. He's been in these kinds of situations before, he knows it's all talk. 

"Please," Bruce snorts like he's tried that before and it failed. " I won’t go there for you, I wouldn't do that even if you begged for it. And look, I know you’re asking for the physical, I know what you want but trust me. The further along you go, the more you just become exposed, helpless. It just happens. And then you get this… hunger, this itch." 

"Are we talking about the same thing, here?" 

Bruce closes his eyes, like he's listening to the big guy again. His voice is careful, gentle. "I know from the outside it looks like breathing and chanting and coming all the time if we just look at each other right. But it’s more than that, when you start looking deeper. You endure everything, you ride the edge of total self-destruction all the time. All you have left is the gaping hole that resides inside you, slowly filling with worry and self-pity and nightmares, every nightmare you’ve ever had.” 

“I just want to point out that this sounds legendary,” Tony shakes his head.

“I’m trying to tell you,” Bruce stops, closing his eyes and counting backwards, “I’m trying to tell you it would turn you into me. Would you really want that?" 

"Could be useful," he shrugs.

Bruce’s eyes go soft, his mouth flattening out, "Everything’s always a joke, isn’t it?” 

“You could use a few more jokes in your life, Banner. And you’re not going to talk me out of this, Bruce. I want to know.” 

“I don’t expect you to feel obligated to know it. I just…do things a certain way. You don't have to learn anything." Bruce shrugs. "Only real reason why I'm good at it is because the big guy hates yoga." 

"That's a shame. I imagine you're really flexible when you put your mind to it," Tony says. "I wanna make this work. So you have to teach me, Banner. I don't expect to know it all-- I know you're not some guru or anything and it's not like I'm expecting to connect with my inner anything, really. I just want to know you. This is obviously a part of you, so it's important to me. I'll be a good student, promise."

Bruce takes a drink, looks like he doesn't trust him, "I just could see you playing with that phone in the corner of my eye and it was driving me nuts." 

"Good a reason to start a Karate Kid montage as any," he smiles. 

"No montages." Bruce replies. 

Tony's already breathing in time, already starting the chain reaction, and Bruce is there with him, single-minded. When their eyes meet once more, Bruce looks at him like deep down under that serenity he's a dog on a choke-chain, control over himself so tight it's scary.

Tony itches for more in the silence. He itches for it all over, like his skin is crawling with the need to touch and kiss and have, have, have _now_ rolling in his gut and rising in his throat. 

Bruce's free hand reaches out and grabs at Tony's across the table. 

"Stop thinking so hard. It's not a staring contest," Bruce mumbles. "We can have one of those later." 

"Let's not and say we did," Tony replies. 

"Never gonna let that slide, are you?" 

"Where's the honor in letting you off easy, Banner? What'd you do, sleep with the Sheriff's daughter? Steal books out of the European Library? Shoplift out of De Passage? Tell someone from the New European Ensemble they needed a better DJ?" 

"Did _you_ commit the whole Wikipedia entry to memory from your phone?" 

Tony pauses, narrows his eyes. "Touché." 

Bruce laughs, pushes his hand through his hair, long and curly and greying constantly. "It's late, Tony. I’m tired. We should go." 

The lights dim even darker as the bar begins to close. The room's waiting. 

Bruce looks away, tips the glass of beer to his mouth, and makes a face of disgust. He finishes it anyway. After, he steals the glass of scotch from his hand and takes a swig before pushing it back.

"Damn," he curses. Tony imagines how the inside of Banner's mouth tastes, sour and oaky. He longs for that taste, too. 

"Thought I saw some tea in the room," Tony murmurs. "Could make a cup before bed." 

"Thanks, Mom," Bruce says, flat and easy. 

Tony swallows the rest of the scotch, leaves a few euros on the table in apology. The bartender looks as they pass, but doesn't give them much of a second glance. 

Tony whips out his phone, flicks through more messages and lands on a picture of Bruce, leaning against the car, teasing smile on his face. Bruce leans against in the corner of the tiny elevator and Tony stands next to him.

"For you, Mr. Popularity," he says, handing Bruce the gadget. "British press is really into 'the Hunk.'" 

Bruce's fingers brush against Tony's as he takes the phone, a long, sensuous caress of a touch. The photo's obviously been taken on a telephoto lens, it's composed like the photographer was just over Tony's shoulder when all of 10 people came up to the English line up all day. 

Bruce is bright red in embarrassment. Tony hopes it's embarrassment, anyway; it could be the scotch. "I think I might need that tea, come to think of it." 

"Maybe," Tony shrugs and turns back to face the elevator doors.


	2. Chapter 2

**North Sea**

It’s hard to sleep. 

"I wish we could open that window," Bruce murmurs, "sea air always makes me sleepy." 

Tony rolls over to lay on his side, but the bed’s too hard for that to even seem comfortable. "Seems cruel, doesn't it? I don’t know how I’ll be able to drive in the morning." 

"Did you expect them to put us right into Amsterdam? Even the train to France has a few hours drive to Paris," he reasons as he slides the shade covering the porthole up a little. 

Outside, the waxing moon is reflecting off the water, and the cabin lights up a little. He can see the panels that hold the ceiling together. He can see that Bruce isn't wearing a shirt, and only has the sheets pooled up to his waist. There's hair everywhere on Bruce's body and Tony allows himself to genuinely admire it, how it's poured down the trunk of his body like paint. 

"We should be exhausted," Bruce sighs. "We're gonna have take a day to pass out in Amsterdam, at this rate." 

"I know what's keeping me up," Tony says. 

"What?" 

"The car." 

"Tony, you just bought it like, fifteen hours ago.” Bruce groans. “We put more miles on it today than it's likely gotten in years. You put the car cover back on it. You paid the guy extra to make sure nobody parked around it. It's _fine._ "

"No," Tony says, rolling over against Bruce, the brush of skin on skin invigorating. "You and the car. You, in that suit, in that pose, against my car." 

Bruce exhales, opens his mouth as Tony kisses him, leans into him, puts his whole body weight on him. He just gives Tony equal pressure, something it will never take training to understand. 

"If we would have been anywhere else and you would have given me those eyes, I swear to god Banner, I would have had my face on your dick so fast." 

"Do you have to be so crass about it?" he asks. 

"It gets my point across," Tony says, gently folding back the comforter, the sheets from Bruce's waist. He hesitates looking down, keeps touching and kissing above his waist. He chips away at Bruce's curious reluctance slowly as his hands roam down the column of Bruce's torso, the curve of his arms. Banner's wristband flicks, flicks, and Tony skims across it because it's part of this, too. And slowly, whatever minute strands of resistance Banner may have had disappear as he arches his body into the touch. 

"That picture," Bruce groans. 

"Imagine how much better it would have been if I were down on my knees, your pants open, your hands in my hair. Imagine if it wasn't just you being all facetious. All of Europe would have known the face you make when you come. I haven't even seen it and I know every paper on the continent would run it for days." 

Tony's hand runs over the top of Bruce's boxer briefs, tracing the Thai font scrawled into the waistband. His fingers crawl down over the center of the fabric covering Bruce's erection.

"While I’m not sure any of that counts, you really don't have to sweet talk me," Bruce says, thinly. Tony knows he's not angry, nowhere near. It's also likely the closest the guy has gotten to begging for it _ever_ , so he won't push his luck. "In fact, I'm pretty sure you should avoid it."

"Okay, McAdams," Tony replies. "I want to put my mouth on you. I want to drag my tongue up and down your cock and I wanna throatfuck myself on you until you ejaculate. Alternatively, cry. Either one. I'll take it as a compliment if you do both." 

"Only if you let me do it to you, too, Gosling," Bruce chuckles, as he reaches for his shorts and angles them downward. They pop over his hips, his ass in slow motion, Thai stretched out on diagonals against skin and bone. Kicking the sheets down to the foot of the bed and then walking his underwear down his legs looks like a conscious, seductive movement fitting of one of the disposable ingénues Tony once bedded so easily, anonymous body parts writhing with desire. Bruce wipes the slate clean as he leans up and takes Tony's mouth. 

Tony breaks away and wiggles out of the t-shirt and boxers he's wearing. And he looks down, sees the shaded canyon of Bruce's thighs, knows there isn't enough light to see all of Bruce's dick, but what he can see is gorgeous, swollen and long. Yeah, he thinks, this can work. 

Bruce falls quiet when Tony rolls his tongue around the head of his cock. The silence is good, a bottomless void save the low hum of a ship. He tastes briny, sweat salty around the crown as Tony slides it into his mouth deeper and deeper as a hand reaches into Tony's hair. He steels himself to be pushed down, take it all to the root, but his mind blanks as Bruce's mouth returns the favor, tongue sliding against his head, mouth staying just still. And then the hand in Tony's hair loosens, the strands falling through Bruce's fingers. He's being pet idly, caressed like an animal in Bruce's care. Tony groans, pulls away to watch him. 

Bruce's mouth is wide and wet and his tongue is clever enough to know all the best ways to get around Tony's defenses. It's easy to roll up, slide his hands around Bruce's hips. He takes his time sucking just under the crown, mapping out every piece of skin, tracing the vein, fingers delicate as they slide against Bruce’s balls. He doesn't really mind this pace, not with the way Bruce's thigh splays out to support his head. He doesn't mind the way they grind against each other, the core of them winding tighter and closer and tighter and closer, either. No, he doesn't mind that the way that Bruce gives head like he's self-soothing, like he's sucking for his benefit, not Tony's. Bruce’s hands hold him close, trying so hard to be gentlemanly. 

But Tony's hands are roaming down Bruce's back, nails scraping against the skin, and Tony's ready to break away and ask for it outright. 

Teach me how to keep going, he wants to say, because I seriously won't be able to take it if it ends. 

But a roll of Bruce's tongue and a thumb tucked behind Tony's sack is all he needs to spill everything he has. It's disappointing, the way the orgasm tears through him, crawls up his spine and pulls him away from his work to lay against Bruce's thigh, sprawled out and rumpled. 

"Tony," Bruce says when everything comes back into perspective. "You really wanna keep going? I’ve been holding myself back and you don’t know if you’ll get radiation poisoning from ingesting my…” 

"Nuh-uh, Banner," Tony says. The Gamma only ever comes out to play when the Big Guy’s around, or when Bruce bleeds onto things. It’s manageable and sometimes even untraceable otherwise. "My idea, so you gotta. No compromises." 

He pushes himself up and back, tucking his legs off to the side so Bruce can't hold onto him anymore. He turns Bruce onto his back, flat, and Banner goes willingly, so at ease even though his heart's beating fast and Tony can tell he wants more. 

And with a little adjusting, Tony's right between his legs, right where he wants to be. He takes that dick like a _charlatan_ , grabs Bruce's hips and pushes down as deep as he can, never too far away from gagging, choking. Bruce is gasping wordlessly, burning up from the attention and Tony's losing his mind with it, can't stand how good it feels inside him, how good his mouth gets stuffed. Bruce reaches down and grabs Tony by the hair once more, pulling him completely away. 

"What's wron--" Tony starts but Bruce pushes back in just a little so the head's on the tip of Tony's tongue. Tony can't tell who's teasing whom, here, the way the head draws little circles, as if it's trying to map out the sensations in the wet heat. His eyes fly up and Banner's looking down, his face covered in shadows. 

"You wanted to do it like you were out on the lawn, sucking me off with all those people watching, right?" Banner asks shakily. His other hand's wound tight in the sheets, the whole arm popping with muscle. Tony reaches up, traces at each swell with his fingers, an acknowledgment that makes Bruce moan. "So you'd want to do it slow. You'd want to drive me crazy. You'd want me so deep, I'd almost forget to breathe. I'd forget where we were. I'd forget everyone watching. You'd have to trick me. You'd have to trick my body into coming all over you. You wouldn’t be able to let me have a say, you know."

Tony still hasn't gotten used to the way Banner mumbles and rambles when he's just barely getting what he wants. It's all filthy, so it's not like he's going to complain. 

"…you'd have to make me a mess, draw it out until I couldn’t form the words to beg you. Make sure everybody knew Tony Stark sucks cock like a pro." 

Jesus, who did he save to deserve _this?_

Banner's cock is stroking right at his gag reflex, now. Tony knows he still has it, feels the tickle in the back of his throat but he tries breathing through it, staying loose. 

"You think I would really fall for it if you just crammed me down your throat?" Bruce asks. "You're smarter than that, aren't you?" 

Tony looks up at him again, slides his tongue out a little further to lap at the underside of Bruce's dick. 

"You don't have to answer," Bruce says quietly, gently, generously, "I know your mouth’s full." 

Then it is full as Bruce pushes his hips the rest of the way in, until Tony's nose mashes up against that stomach and he's gagging and it's messy and all feels like it’s in overdrive. He can barely move away for air without pushing his head against Bruce's palm. He endures, wobbling back and forth, the head of Bruce’s cock flicking into his throat and then retreating. Bruce's other hand comes down with Tony's, rolls across Tony's cheek, thumb sliding just against Tony's distended throat, his stretched-swollen mouth. 

"But the real secret," Bruce says conspiratorially, as he lets Tony pull away to steal some air, "is just a little bit of that bottom row of your teeth, when you've got me right where you want me. I kinda like it when it gets a little mean." 

And then Bruce's thumb is peeling back Tony's bottom lip, and pushes Tony all the way to the root once more, keeps him there and lets his hips pulse smoothly against teeth scraping the base of his dick. His hands fall away, his legs straighten out over Tony's shoulders, his head falls back into the pillows and Bruce's whole body rolls like water as he _comes_. Tony feels the twitch of muscles right under the skin against his tongue, and pulls away a bit for a taste and some more saliva before he lets Bruce really have it, teeth and throat and groaning, humming, savoring it all. He looks up and Bruce's face has tipped back into the light, features gone slack as his chest rises, rises, rises and his hips follow suit. After, he melts into the bed. 

Tony pulls away for a breath. "Thought guys like you wouldn't bother ejaculating," he jokes, leaning down to clean the last traces of come away from Bruce's cock. The action gains a long, loud, and shaky exhale, like Bruce could will himself into round two. There's a thought. 

"You have obviously watched too many kama sutra movies," Bruce jokes back. "Like I'm forbidden to do it or something. I'd break that rule a lot." 

“Is that right, Mr. ‘you know I’m poison?’” 

Bruce’s face leans forward a bit, eyes gleaming. “Lot of different kinds of poison, Mr. Stark.” 

“You know you only do that to rile me up,” Tony grins as he leans upward and pushes his mouth against Bruce's. 

“That’s got less to do with what I say and more with what you hear, don’t you think?” Bruce breathes and maybe it's a little stupid to think that Bruce tastes like things Tony's never had the words for, never had the will to describe. 

Falling asleep is only slightly easier.

 

 

 

**Hoek Van Hollande**

Even though he’s an early riser, Bruce is often a writhing, somewhat grumpy mess when he gets up. He looks especially snuggly today, the sun streaming in through the port window over his head. Tony figures they didn’t close it last night. It'd be more annoying if Bruce didn't look like a cat stretched out in the narrow sliver of reddish-yellow beam just after sunrise. 

"C'mon Pistachio," Tony says, after he's cleaned himself up and put on some pants. He leans over on Bruce's side of the bed, shoving a hand in Bruce's face, palm pressed against Bruce's nose, fingers waving over Bruce’s eyelids and forehead. Bruce tries to bat him away, both hands flailing. It's kind of adorable. 

"I hate you so much right now," Banner says, but there's no acid in the words. He sounds like a five year old. 

"You need to get dressed before they kick us off the boat." 

"'M on a boat?" 

"You're on a boat. It's been all swim trunks and flippy-floppies and nautical-themed pashmina afghans," Tony singsongs. 

"I don't get that reference," Bruce groans. “Wasn’t around, I guess, when that was a joke.” 

"That’s a shame. It was clever," Tony shrugs, leaning over and pulling the shade down just over Bruce's sightline. Bruce sits up, doesn't lean in for a kiss but slides his hand, his arm, his back against Tony's as he gets out of bed. He grabs their bag, and walks to bathroom naked. 

"I don't suppose we have time to eat?" 

"I've already had some coffee, but there's a decent restaurant about 20 minutes away. JARVIS already has a reservation for us for breakfast. Although he wanted to know if you were more pancakes or waffles," Tony says, letting the port window shade fly up, the whole room bathed in sunlight. It's seven in the morning and he's only really had about eight hours of sleep in the last two days but fuck it. He's asked for it and he knows Banner's gone through worse. 

"Is it some kinda personality test thing?" Bruce pokes his head out from the bathroom, toothbrush hanging from his mouth. "Why would he want to know?" 

"I wrote my AI to care, thanks much. Maybe you need to figure it out so there can be lots of welcome home pancakes in your future. It is one of his many ways of displaying affection." 

"You don't know how much that'd creep me the hell out, Stark." 

"But you didn't give me an answer. Is it complicated? Does Jolly Green like something different than you do?" 

Bruce slides out of the bathroom, rolling on his threadbare and faded t-shirt, zipping up the cheap jeans, playing with his hair like it'll behave if he just shows enough patience and initiative. "You know, it's complicated." 

"How so?" 

"Hulk like pancakes." 

"Your Hulk impression is charming," Tony grins.

"Wasn't an impression," Bruce says, like he's casually accessed the heart of darkness to answer the question. 

“How’d you just do that?” 

“I’ve been treating him less like a monster and more like a person. He can make his own decisions, most times,” Bruce smiles. 

Ooo-kay. "So what does Banner like?" 

"I'm a French toast man, honestly," Bruce says, throwing the bag on the bed and reaching into the sheets for last night's discarded underwear. Tony can imagine the origins of that preference coming from a lot of different ways: maybe Betty or Bruce's mom made the good stuff, but maybe Bruce had gained respect for bread gone stale while on the run. Tony can't quite bring himself to ask. 

"Will crepes do?" he asks instead. 

Bruce sits down next to him, so close their legs are touching, and smiles, "course." 

 

 

**Oude Delft 133**

For the record, the crepes are really _fucking _good.__

"So, did you figure out where we were staying in Amsterdam? JARVIS could get us something on the fly but I never really thought to ask you."

"Got us a place on one of the canals. We can lay low for a few days," Bruce says, enigmatically. 

"A room?" Tony asks. 

"A loft. Nobody to bother us, that way," Bruce answers. 

"How the hell'd you do that?" 

"Called in a favor while you were haggling over the car," he shrugs. 

"Fuck being a Bond girl, you're Moneypenny," Tony asserts. 

"I don't see the sexual tension there, honestly," Bruce shrugs. "Stark industries doesn't have a real estate division?" 

"What do we look like, Catherine's?" 

"Better than hotels," Bruce says, like he's spent a thousand years in temporary apartments, rented flats and squats. Tony imagines how tedious that could be, how isolating it is, and then imagines it's how Bruce knows so much and acts so free in the places they go: he can be at home anywhere. Maybe he uses to guilt the big guy into behaving.

"You can pitch it to Pepper after we get back." 

 

 

 

**A4**

The last exit for _Den Haag_ passes by, and Tony stares. "Hey, will you actually tell me what happened there? Like, ever? Should I leave well enough alone?" 

Bruce's eyes lift from his notebook and flit across the windshield. Dark grey clouds flit across the sky and the highway splits off, ropes of concrete elevated in every direction. 

"Somebody left me for dead there," Bruce replies, curtly. "It was a nice city, of what I remember. Just…lots of bad memories, that's all. Not really ready to go back." 

"Hmm," Tony's brows furrow, and it takes a second to remember where they are, where they're going. His mouth parts, ready to spit out another question but something tells him that isn't a good idea. Bruce's hand slips gently over Tony's wrist as his hand holds onto the gear stick. Tony's eyes flick down for a second, watching. The touch is warm, full of life. 

"I’ll tell you soon. I just need time. And I need for you to trust me," Bruce says. "You do…trust me, right?" 

"Terrifyingly so," Tony says, truthfully. "Just the driver, here." 

"Just trust me, Tony," he says, his fingers raising gently, curling back. The side of his fingers slides against the back of Tony's hand, the tips just barely grazing. Bruce's breath hitches the tiniest bit, so quick Tony almost misses it. 

"You getting off on this, Banner?" he asks. 

"You're warm," Bruce says, a finger softly tracing over the skin on Tony's knuckles. The touch is casual, but the hesitation in it isn't exactly free from desire. 

"That's all it takes?" 

Bruce's hand reaches back down for the knob it was twiddling before the conversation started. "Sometimes," he admits, secretly. 

There's a soft, genuine smile growing across Tony's face. "I think I'm starting to understand you, Banner." 

"Really?" Bruce asks flatly, fidgeting with his hands and readjusting his glasses. "What do you understand?" 

"What you mean when you say you're a nerve," Tony says. "Why you act like you wouldn't wish that on anyone." 

"I wouldn't," Bruce smiles, leaning back to tuck his notebook away. "It's challenging." 

"I like challenges," Tony admits. "They're kind of a guilty pleasure." 

"Guilty pleasures are oxymorons." 

"How very Christian Grey of you," Tony smiles. "What are they, then?" 

"You read that book?" 

"Pepper put it in my briefcase for a long flight as a joke. It was entertaining, I guess," he shrugs. "My inner goddess seemed to dig it. Answer the question." 

"Well, think about it. If they're pleasures, they're pleasures. If they're pleasures because you think they're wrong or you're embarrassed by them, then the pleasure comes from the fact that you know it's wrong or humiliating. The action is kind of irrelevant at that point," Bruce says, like he's had a lot of time to parse the subject. Maybe he has. Time alone can do that to a guy. "Like that book. Did you take pleasure from reading it, or because you got the chance to prove Pepper wrong about reading it?" 

"I’ll admit that look on her face when I gave her my opinion on the nature of that relationship did make it worthwhile," Tony muses. “It felt like a come on, but seriously, I’m not really all that good with whips since the last time I was in Monaco.” 

"You suffer well, don't you?" Bruce murmurs, and leans his seat backward.


	3. Chapter 3

**Looiersgracht**

The loft is bigger than Tony imagined it would be, warm and well furnished. He turns around and sees Bruce's jacket hanging by the door and his bag on the sofa, and if this is what Bruce's place looked like before the big guy came into his life: exposed brick and deep lilac walls, not an obvious bachelor pad but not quite free from youthful taste, either. For a second, Tony's not himself, but a working stiff in the city sneaking into the sanctuary of his boyfriend's apartment. The anonymity is exhilarating. 

Tony puts most of the bags down on the table, tucks a few things into the refrigerator. Bruce isn't in view but Tony saw him while walking up to the building, sitting on the balcony with a short and fat cigar in his mouth. Tony takes the last bag and steps out onto the platform. 

"Mind if I join you?" 

"We both know that's rhetorical," Bruce says as he flicks the cigar at the ashtray. Off to the side is a box of whole, damp Tobacco leaves wrapped in wet cloth, and a bag that's undeniably from a coffee shop. 

"Didn't know you partake, Banner," Tony grins, loosening his tie as he pulls up a chair. 

"I don't, not usually. Still, when in Rome," Bruce shrugs. He takes the cigar from his mouth, flicks it between his fingers and hands it to Tony. He's in a worn long sleeve shirt and a pair of jeans cut tighter on him than Tony ever remembers seeing.

"So you bought new clothes and picked up a dime bag because 'when in Rome?'" Tony grins. "Told you you'd fit right in."

"These are your jeans, actually. Spilled tea on mine." Bruce replies, lazily. "I forgot you had such narrow legs." 

"Hah-hah," Tony snipes. "I didn't even bring--"

"They were at the bottom of the Vuitton," Bruce interrupts. Oh. "Besides, It was either this or sleeping." 

"To be fair," Tony smirks. "You've slept maybe ten hours in two days." 

"You've slept less," Bruce says. 

"So have you," Tony replies. He brings the cigar to his mouth, surprised at the taste. "You rolled this yourself, right?" 

"Not what I meant, but you're right, I guess," he says, tipping his head upward to the cigar. "What's wrong with it?" 

"Nothing," Tony says, taking another long pull. The tobacco is fresh, well cut and in the center, there's just enough weed to make the taste of smoke tickle deep in his throat. It goes down smooth, and Tony could get used to it. "I'm impressed. Where'd you learn?" 

"Brazil. Roommate worked in a cigar factory for a while," Bruce shrugs. "What'd you spend the afternoon doing?" 

"Long walk. Picked up some stuff for us to eat. JARVIS remembered the ingredient list for those dumplings that you made that one time. I thought we could cook tonight," Tony shrugs. "Well, I thought _you_ could cook, seeing as last time I tried to help you, I got kicked out before you could go all Destro on the tower." 

"Well, for a genius your knife skills are surprisingly lacking. So what's in the bag, then?" Bruce asks, lifting a lazy hand to point. Tony tosses it to him, and it lands with a light 'thunk' in his lap. Bruce turns the bag towards him, reaches in and pulls out a candy white ball gag, holding it up by the brass buckle. "Now, Tony." 

"I forgot that was in there," Tony says. It's a lie. 

"Of course," Bruce smirks, his voice stoned-weak. "Some adoring fan just slipped it in?" 

"I've gotten weirder things.” The weirdest gift Tony's ever gotten from someone who called themselves a fan was an ‘I-ron Man’ anal trainer set. He's almost entirely sure it wasn't a come-on, the guy just didn't have much else to give at the time. To be fair, it was Vegas and they were in a brothel. 

Bruce puts the gag down on the table next to the weed, and returns to the cloth bag, pulling out a large green molded hand. "You got me hulk hands? I didn't even know they made these big enough for adults." 

"I saw them and thought of you," Tony shrugs. “As one would, I suppose.” 

Bruce pulls one out, slides it on his hand. He fits the other one between his legs and slides that on, too. He looks silly with fake molded fists the wrong shade of green hanging at the ends of skinny arms. Mussed hair hangs in his face, and he's closed his eyes, bitten his lip. He's talking with the Hulk about this development. 

Tony stands up, puts his dukes up and tries to do his best Logan impression, the cigar hanging from his lip. "C'mon, Banner, fight me like a man." 

"I don't know if this turns you on or if you're just trying not to laugh." 

"Would you feel any better if I told you I didn't know, either?" Tony asks. 

Bruce looks up at him with unsure eyes and a self-defeating smile. He unfolds his legs, stands up and walks until Tony's about an arm's length away. He holds Tony’s gaze and bends his knees gently, holding his body like a prize-fighter as he raises his foam core fists. 

“Come and get it?” he teases. It’s the cockiest Tony’s ever heard him. Tony leans in on a lark and Bruce ducks, lightening fast to roll a hand toward Tony’s ribs, coaxing him. He pulls Tony close, the other hand sliding around Tony's waist, holding him still. 

"I can’t believe you just rope-a-doped me!" Tony grins as he wriggles a hand out of Bruce’s grip and pulls the cigar from his mouth, flicking it on the ashtray before setting it down. “You are so high right now.” 

"Yeah," Bruce grins as he licks at Tony's mouth, opens him into a kiss that feels curious, a bit self-conscious. Still, his hands reach up to hold Bruce still by the jaw. He kisses until there’s no air left between them. 

They break and Bruce's eyes are brown again as he sits back down on the bench. The scene is beginning to look like a photo shoot, all provocative and awkward and filled to the gills with hipster irony. Bruce isn't quite posing, but the angles of his body are present, all arched out and up and obvious. His glasses are sliding down his nose, slightly askew like he’s been roughed up. Tony wants to run his mouth over the angles and planes, return the worship Bruce always gives him in this state. 

"How hard is this for you?" Tony asks, feeling a thrill slide down his spine, he aches to engineer new forms of sensation just to see how Bruce reacts to the pleasure.

"I like you enough to put up with your shit," Banner chuckles. "Thank you for the gift. It means a lot." 

The words sound meaningful; maybe Bruce really likes the swag his sidekick inspires. Maybe he's on his second blunt of the day so he's baked enough to be amused at his own offense. Who knows? Either way, it doesn’t look like a lie and he's being a better sport than Steve would. 

"What are your plans for the rest of the afternoon?" 

"I have very little motivation to do anything, honestly. Keep me company?" Bruce asks.

Hell yes. "If you care to share." 

Bruce's awkward laugh is like a reset as he takes the hands off and places them on the table. He sits back, rolls up the sleeves of his shirt, and sits his elbows on his folded knees. Tony sits next to him on the long bench, looking like a working stiff running himself ragged. It's a nice day, sunny and cool and Tony slides back until he's right against Bruce. Bruce's hand slides into Tony's hair. 

"Tell me a secret?" Bruce murmurs as he reaches with his free hand to pick up the cigar. He takes a long drag, the ember burning bright, and then he passes it to Tony. 

"You mean one beyond the fact that you sound like a 10 year old girl right now? Okay. I really envy Justin Hammer's ability to dance," Tony says, earnestly. He inhales, tries not to choke. "I'm pretty sure Pepper does, too. She considered asking him for lessons, once. And I know he tried to kill us more than once and the whole thing but… it's almost abnormal to be that smooth, don't you think? Can you imagine just gliding across a floor like he does? I bet he dances all the time in his jail cell." 

Bruce exhales and buries his face in Tony's shoulder, laughing hard in startled surprise. "I wasn't expecting that." 

"You said you wanted a secret. Pepper stole his famous white gloves while they arrested him at the fair.” The haze of intoxication is finally wrapping its arms around him, time slowing down. He reaches a hand toward Bruce's, their fingers slowly intertwining. It looks weird. No, awesome, it looks awesome. Tony grins. "Your turn." 

"I always wanted children, before. Maybe with Betty, maybe I'd adopt. I just wanted to be a good dad, better than my…better than him,” Bruce says. Tony knows what he means. "Now? The idea scares me, so many things would have to change and I already feel so obligated to..." 

"My offer to mentor some of Charles' kids is still on the table," Tony says. "Or we could do some searching, if you wanted. Lots of homeless kids who got kicked out because of one thing or another. We could find one with anger issues just like yours and you can adopt them until the big guy has a new ragey best friend." 

"You never stop making that sound so easy, like you care about it," Bruce shakes his head. Tendrils of smoke fall from his mouth like he's breathing fire. 

“You don’t understand how much I didn’t care, a few years ago. This just feels like make-up work, finding ways to undo my own damage,” Tony sighs. He hates this period of high, always has. 

"Who were you, before? Just….how did you exist?" 

Tony doesn't know what Bruce means, but he can take a damn good stab. “I treated everyone I knew like they were just another thing I’d built for a task, maybe PR or Engineering. I didn’t care, because frankly, I was king.” 

“You would have hated me,” Bruce grins. 

“Banner, trust me: you’d be another gorgeous face in my cult of personality, Genius Division. Made sure people loved me in the press so I wouldn’t be the face of death wherever I went. I would make the rain, and I didn’t bother much with the details. Avoided knowing who brought my guns to a knife fight, didn’t want to know context.” Obadiah would pit countries against each other, but Tony would make those conflicts into masterpieces, shimmering tributes to the best engineering could offer. He looks back on that, knows he’ll never make up for that with apologies or metal suits or bullets aimed at the right people this time. “I bet this is nothing you don’t already know.”

"Quite an impressive understatement," Bruce adds. “I am intimately familiar with a number of your wares.” 

Tony remembers the night in that bar, making that offer, that contract with Ross. Tony remembers turning toward his R&D, hand crafting the research that went into the bullets, the bombs. It had felt magical, pure alchemy now that Tony was helping the stars and stripes beat it’s finest enemy. It almost felt like Tony's baby for a while. Just thinking of it now brings a wave of sadness to the time he spends with Bruce, a sense of fragility. 

“Is it possible to betray someone you don’t even know?” Tony wonders, aloud. 

Bruce nods like he’s done it a thousand times over. His mouth presses down into a wry smile, "Don't look so guilty. You look awful when you're guilty. Big guy and I just knew your product line well, that's all. I could tell you the difference between a missile that stung, one that burned, and one that just made a pretty light, if you were still in the business of making that stuff." 

"You say that like it’s no big deal," Tony says, and he knows the smile he throws in Bruce's direction doesn't reach up to his eyes. 

"Lot of people wanted me," Bruce shrugs, taking another drag. "You know, at some point it just became a compliment. An unnerving, annoying compliment but kudos nonetheless, I guess. You just made the music that filled my dance card, is all. I think. Maybe."

"Hopefully it wasn't always a waltz," Tony replies. 

"It was never a waltz, Tony,” Banner smirks. He makes the metaphor sound dreadful. "Nothing nearly so civilized. There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you." 

"Yeah?"

"You remember that first time?" Bruce asks, pulling the blunt away and staring as it burns. They're at a particularly large pocket of weed, Tony bets. He can smell it lurking out from under the deep smell of tobacco like a dirty little secret. "When I disappeared?"

He nods, mostly because he remembers that day like he remembers the last few days of MIT, Afghanistan, the Stark Fair. There had been an advanced lecture on astrobiology at NYU and Tony had turned his back for one goddamn second. Bruce disappeared, as if he'd always been a ghost, as if he'd never been there at all. At the tower that night, Tony realized that everything had been left like Bruce had never been there, wiped clean of fingerprints and aromas and _warmth_ , just another empty space waiting to be filled. The next month had been a downward spiral until Bruce had limped back in with new bruises and an incredibly broken spirit. 

Bruce keeps going, softly. "I wanted to go to some place that could really use the help. Syria, maybe. Ended up in Bahrain because thought I had friends, there. But they left, so I got found. I clawed and scratched and tried everything I could to get lost again but…I couldn’t slip through the cracks." 

Tony sits up at that. Bahrain's been getting progressively worse, the situation uncomfortable to even start sorting out from everything else in his head right now and he knows it was Bruce's attempt to protect the little guy, help where people need it most and teach them to help themselves. "Who captured you?" 

"You don't want to know," Bruce replies gently. "One-eye, as you like to call him, pulled me out before things could get serious." 

"You came back with a broken hand and that thing with your feet and you were so sleep deprived you made Jarvis replace all my music with Radiohead and that wasn't what you call _serious?_ " Tony asks. "You and I have very different definitions of the word 'serious,' obviously." 

"They just wanted to get the big guy out, see if they could use him when they ran out of bullets and prison space," Bruce's voice falls flat and his hand waves facetiously, like he's heard this so many times it amuses him. Tony reaches out to run a hand over Bruce's shoulders, the swell of his back as he leans down on his forearms. Bruce pushes the weed into his hand. "I was sedated through the whole extraction, and after you know who had me where they wanted, Tony, they gave me a choice. Either I did what was needed to become an asset or I'd become property. You know what that means?" 

Becoming SHIELD property means a straightjacket, a maze of paperwork and terrible bedside manner: isolation, deprivation, occasional starvation if you've done something _really_ wrong. Trippy, fucked up stuff- Tony doesn’t delude himself into thinking they wouldn’t hang Bruce out to dry. Funny, he thought Bruce had more than proven himself with the Initiative. But if he's an asset then, "wait, you're some kind of assassin? Like Natas-?"

"The situation's a little more complicated than that. Tony.” 

“How much more?” 

“I'm going to keep disappearing, and I'm going to keep coming back. Sometimes I’ll be incredibly hollow, and maybe I won’t want to talk or be touched for days but I need you to know that if I didn't take this path, I wouldn't have ever seen you again. Hell, the big guy wouldn't ever see _anything_ again. It was the only way," Bruce sits up to face him, melancholy and determination in his eyes. Maybe there's a little regret there, a little fear of impending rejection. If they weren't high, Tony would mistake it for being on the verge of crying. "And sometimes, I’ll try to keep you away because I can't trust what will happen if I don't." 

"Please, people have tried to kidnap me a million times," Tony says, flippantly. “It’s one of the only things liberals and conservatives can agree on, sometimes.” 

"I'm not sure you understand what I'm getting at, here." 

"I do. You want me to make sure I don't think I'm being used as bait, or that you're being disingenuous. Noted.”

“It’s more than that,” Bruce says, reaching for Tony’s wrist, linking their fingers together. 

“I get the picture. Now, tell me about the other time. What happened the other time? That one really did scare me," Tony asks. 

Bruce looks down at their hands, his back hunched over. Tony sits the cigar in the ashtray again and turns his body, folds himself in until he can see just how small, starved and alone Bruce looks right now as his mouth curves up in a humorless smile. “It was my field test. I needed to prove that I could survive a hunt without rustling up the big guy.”

His room had looked utterly abandoned, a state of in medias res. Tony hadn’t even had the time, nor the strength to process what had happened. He’d left for Malibu that night and refused to think about it for days. 

Tony had barely even settled back in Manhattan eight days later before JARVIS had reported that Bruce’s broken body was laying unconscious, gamma-riddled blood seeping into the metal of the express elevator to the penthouse. There'd been broken ribs, blooming bruises on his jaw, a virtual canon of bruises and wounds on his back that looked so dramatic Tony couldn't even find the words to ask what happened. There'd been an outdated haircut and a bad dye job that had washed out into the cotton of Bruce's too tight shirt as it soaked through with New York rain. His eye was swollen shut. 

Bruce’d hesitated to walk near anything with a camera in Stark Tower the first week he’d returned. Eventually, Tony stopped asking questions and just covered every lens he could find with paper, and told JARVIS to run silent every time Bruce entered a room. 

The context of those memories sends an icy chill down Tony’s spine. Back to being the billionaire and the fugitive, he supposes. "The Hague?" 

Bruce's eyes lift, and Tony watches with horror. Brown and green have been replaced by the color of pure steel, a deep and oppressive grey. It makes him look otherworldly in ways that had worn off from hanging out with Bruce and the Hulk. 

“The Hague. They dosed me up, kicked my ass. Threw me off a boat, made me swim to shore and fight my way out of the city. They called the cops on me, called Interpol, another day and Ross would have been in town. I didn’t even realize that the stakes were so high until I was back at the tower. Tony, you should have seen it," Bruce’s smile isn’t ugly, but its insinuation is soaked in blood and broken bones like a grotesque private joke, “and you should have seen what I did to them. It sorta makes sense that the foremost authority on radiation would be quite handy with radiation poisoning. Poetic.” 

"You're starting to scare me," Tony says, honestly. Bruce laughs humorlessly at the admission, like he'd never considered that Tony would ever feel that way. The little light on Bruce's wristband is matching his normal heartbeat. Maybe it's busted, so he reaches out and pushes his free hand down to the cloth on Banner's chest, fingertips then knuckles and palm.

"I am? Not so mild mannered after all. Not such a ‘good doctor’, anymore." he asks, bites the inside of his lip when Tony nods, jerkily. He leans in, whispers lowly as the fear raises, raises. “I’d be lying if I said I was surprised. But I was always going to become a weapon, Tony. Better I get to help somebody clean up the mess instead of getting turned into another host to harvest.” 

Bruce looks down at the impression of the Arc Reactor in Tony's shirt, pressing his hand against it, fingertips then knuckles and palm. Tony's gotten used to the vibrations it makes sometimes and the pain that shoots through him every now and then as he just tries to _breathe_ around his little artificial second heart, but now it’s a different kind of tremor he hasn’t felt before. 

He starts hoping Bruce doesn't make a move to rip it out, because that shit got old quick last time with Obadiah. It’s foolish, an awful thought and the anxiety rises in his throat like bile. 

Tony decides to change the tone, "So big daddy Fury allows you to smoke the reefer?" 

"And show up to places with you," Bruce adds. "All those tabloids are a real security risk." 

"How do they let you get away with that one, huh? Blowing your cover all over the place?" 

"Who said they give me cover?" Bruce grins, his hand sliding off Tony's chest. "I have it on good authority they like it when my opponent sees me coming." 

"God, that's terrifying," Tony groans. "Do they make you--" 

"It's not worth knowing, Tony," Bruce says. 

"I just," Tony pauses, swallows. The words feel slightly alien to say to another man, instead of hearing it tossed in his direction, "worry about you, sometimes." 

"And that's the reason why it's not worth telling you what they make me do." 

"So what do I call you? Dr. Banner? _Agent_ Banner…" 

"Never call me agent. I’m not an agent, if we’re being honest," Bruce says. "Bruce is fine. Doctor, if you must be formal." 

"Would you kiss me, Doctor Banner?" Tony leans inward to ask. 

Bruce’s smile is awkward, genuine. Context falls through Tony's fingers as their mouths meet. The only thing that's left is the slow, sluggish feeling of a careful kiss, and there are so many things that need tending, so many questions worth asking, things that need knowing but Tony wants to forget about all of them, would rather focus on this moment. 

They’re bumping real close to ‘the Notebook’ again. 

There’s the sound of something falling down the street. Bruce pulls away and turns to see. His eyes are still eerie and grey and focused with the need to protect, a dash of anxiety and paranoia thrown in. 

“Tell me what’s going on,” Tony demands. 

"Nothing. It’s nothing. Look, I'm going to take a shower, maybe a nap," Bruce sighs as he gets up. He bends over the table to collect the tobacco and the weed and puts it all back into the box, cutting the burnt edge off the cigar with an economy of movement Tony’s only ever seen on Bruce’s chemical lab bench. Bruce pushes past Tony, their bodies brushing together for a second and it feels like a revelation, like Tony can hear Bruce's heartbeat in his head. "Running hot water would define existence right now. Join me?" 

Tony should probably use the time to process, but fuck it, the whole twist and turn of this day should likely come with a reward or two. He'll think about who they are, what they are, the things he has to come to grips with later. 

"Right behind you, Jolly Green." 

Bruce is staring over the table for a few seconds over Tony's shoulder, eyes following the movement of something Tony can’t see. He turns, trying to follow Bruce’s line of sight and all he can see are photographers watching the two of them from across the canal. His heart leaps into his throat in hopes they couldn't make sense of Bruce's low, intense whisper. 

"What now?" Tony asks, as Bruce stares intensely enough to be entranced. 

Bruce shakes his head. "Nevermind. C'mon." 

Tony's standing, watching Bruce keep staring. "Banner," he warns. It feels good to shape his voice around the name, almost wanton to know what's going on. "Don't do this. Don't leave me in the dark, here.” 

"Tony?" 

"Hmm?" 

Bruce's hand brushes against Tony's carefully, an outward token of seduction. Every new act is another contradiction, another knot in the strings that make Bruce who he is. Bruce leans in, so aware of his body as purrs in Tony’s ear, the perfect paparazzi picture. “Bring the gag." 

Tony couldn't have heard that right and he’s sure it shows on his face, but uh, "yeah…not a problem." 

The leather strap of the gag is hanging limp in one of Tony's hands, and he's leaning against the countertop. The shower stall, tucked just behind the pane of glass, looks like it'll just barely fit the two of them. However, the faucet looks extra wide and flat and Tony bets the tight fit would be worth it.

"What do you expect me to do with this?" Bruce asks, fingers taking the strap from Tony’s hand. 

"Put it in my mouth, mostly," Tony shrugs. "There are not very many other places to put it, when you think about it." 

Bruce's brows furrow like he's thinking it over. Like there's anything worth thinking over. 

"I'll admit," Bruce says, gently as he pulls his t-shirt from over his head. The jeans look even better when there's nothing distracting from Bruce's ridiculously hairy chest. "Tony, I think I saw this coming." 

"What did it look like?" Tony asks, as Bruce's hands trace the curve of Tony's jaw, eyes focused down at Tony's mouth. 

They flick up, careful, hazel toned in the light. "Like you begging.”

“Oh yeah?” Tony asks. 

Bruce nods, staring, “Richest man in the world. Smartest mouth I know. Could ask for anything, in any language and it’s asking to be forced silent. Why is that, Tony?" 

"It's…a little more complicated than that," Tony says, curling his arms around Bruce's middle.

"Would you help me understand?" 

"It's messy."

Bruce slowly takes the gag from Tony's hand, tucks the straps behind the ball gag and holds it up. "Would you explain it if I put this in your mouth first?" 

Tony hesitates. But hey, if that's what Bruce thinks will help, "sure." 

The hand on Tony's face traces over his lips, an assessment. The fingers slide downward, just a little, pulling Tony's mouth open gently, willing it slackened for Bruce's lips to come and slide against both top and bottom, tongue tracing. Tony moans as Bruce turns his head gently, sucks in a kiss at Tony's chin. Once Bruce gets his fill, the gag pushes in, cleaved between Tony's teeth with the confidence of someone who's done such things before. 

The straps lay across Tony's face, and the buckle slides shut behind his head. It's not tight enough to cut into the skin, but it is tight enough to make it impossible to spit out without breaking a few teeth in the process. The business end's made of hardened, spun sugar, tastes cloyingly sweet on his tongue and he wishes he could lick it, suck at it because it tastes better than he thought and he's not going to read into that, not right now.

Bruce's little sigh sounds like total fantasy fulfillment, a longing he'd denied himself in hopes that it would go away. "So, tell me how things are, Tony." 

Tony stares for a silent, incredible moment. He leans back against the sink, giving Bruce space to work but Bruce follows him, hands splayed on either side of the countertop as he presses his forehead to Tony’s, as he cants his hips to brush their erections together. 

“It’s rude to not answer when I ask you a question,” Bruce reminds. Tony supposes it is. Sugary saliva tickles the back of his throat and he swallows it with the knife’s edge of humiliation and the haze of intoxication. He can’t work his jaw. 

"Lemmie guess," Bruce says after a few more beats of silence, unbearable awkward and stifling. "Someone conned you into thinking when something's shoved into your mouth it's because they want you quiet? That's not what I want, Tony. I want you here, I want you present. I don’t want you to be passive while you take what I dish out. I want you to be as loud as you need. I deserve those noises and your body does, too." 

That's… strangely endearing, in a completely overdramatic way. Bruce’s hands raise, fingers skimming across the plane of Tony’s torso as it morphs into his chest. He flicks button after button free on Tony’s shirt. 

“That’s what I need from you, Tony. I need you to be truthful. When I scare you, when I turn you on, when you don’t understand,” Bruce continues. His mouth slides down to Tony’s ear, his voice lowering into a snarl. “Don’t _lie_ to me, Stark.” 

Tony doesn’t. He muffles out his fears, tells Bruce exactly what’s going on, that he hasn’t found the way to make Bruce happy, that he hasn’t found the way to make himself happy in this situation either. The search means a lot but now, now the stakes have changed, knowing that Bruce could leave with the intention of coming back and just not survive. And maybe that Bruce would be happiest, finally, in a bloody death that would put the monster in him down for good. 

“Speak slower, Anthony,” Bruce says lowly. Like he’s listening intently, like he wants to know. 

But nobody calls Tony ‘Anthony’, because nobody’s _allowed_ : that name’s synonymous with the abject mindfuck of mediocre parents who are always putting out fires and never asking him about his dreams. He looks up, breathes through his nose, tries to calm himself down because it’s not like Bruce is trying to push him against a hard boundary, it’s not like he knows. And it’s not like Tony couldn’t use a forceful stop to settle himself down. Maybe this is Bruce’s way of telling him he can help. 

Bruce's fingers start at his pants, unhooking the little invisible buttons as he leans in for another kiss at Tony's lower lip. He pauses, "Did you seriously think it was a good idea for you to buy a gag made of candy and then let me put it in your mouth while we're both stoned?" 

Well, when he puts it _that_ way. 

But it doesn't matter, Tony's naked now and Bruce is crowded up against him. He feels Bruce's lips split open against his, can feel the pressure of a tongue pushing against the gag from the other side and they're both helpless. 

Bruce's hand on Tony's chest taps gently against the Arc Reactor. A shock of pain cuts through the fog of arousal, and Bruce smirks like it's a wake-up call.

"Tell me how you see the rest of this fantasy playing out, Stark," Bruce demands. 

He tells Bruce that he wants to lay like a sacrifice on the altar of a voracious god. He can see it Technicolor behind his eyelids, how it gets dark, how it ends blindfolded on an unmade bed, hands clenched tight as he's helpless to do anything but receive. 

He tells Bruce every lurid detail, how he'd want to be held down, reduced to a single point of entry, pressure applied with expert precision. A piece of coal being forced to reveal its diamond nature. He tells Bruce about how he'd keep fighting until he got touched just right and then there'd be absolutely nothing left. 

He tells Bruce about how much he wants that for a night, how he imagines it would be the closest he comes to the rapture of the Hulk. Then he mentions how 'Rapture of the Hulk' would be an awesome name for a porno. He keeps talking as Banner lays kisses up and down his throat. His fantasies get more ruthless as it dawns upon him that there's no way of knowing who Bruce is when he's away, the man he is during missions, hunts, and assorted exercises in fleeing.

"How hard is this for you?" Bruce asks in wonderment, like it's some kind of exercise or interrogation and oh, that's such a dangerous thought Tony wants to sit down and torture himself with it, force himself to bend his mouth around asking for it later. Bruce's hands raise to Tony's shoulders, fingers sinking into the flesh. "Easy, easy. I can't tell if that's excitement or fear." 

Both, Tony groans out. It’s both, really. 

"Then let's play a game," Bruce whispers with the kind of mischief that could denote Mentos and coke or maybe murder depending on the day. The shower turns on, and the design of the stall suddenly makes sense, water falling in sheets that turn the whole stall into a rainstorm. "I was planning to run an experiment, of sorts. Mind giving me a hand? I'll be gentle, promise." 

They’re too alike for Bruce to really expect to take it easy on him. Tony’s okay with that, his hands latching into Bruce's hair and pulling him up so they can look at each other eye to eye.

Bruce moans, looks at Tony with lidded eyes like he's a slave to this lust, too, their bodies lining up until the weight of Bruce's head pushes against Tony's palm. Energy and arousal courses back and forth between them in a way Tony hasn't really recognized before, and now he can see it, the mass Bruce is underneath it all. The revelation that he's right on the edge with him- intoxicated by the same things in so many ways- is downright startling. 

Bruce steps into the stall, the water instantly matting his hair down to his head, his chest, his legs and thighs and crotch. The anxiety constantly present in his face falls away, and the smoldering look he throws is a siren's song, beckoning inward. 

Tony Stark is really, _really_ good at following directions if the incentive's there. 

The glass stall door slides shut, and the water's just this side of warm, but Bruce is radiating heat as he rolls the bar of soap between his hands, the sting of sandalwood and tobacco, clove rising in the air. Banner takes a minute to smear himself down, working the soap in all those fun places soap is made for before he reaches out toward Tony and takes care of him, too. His hands slide against the plane of Tony's back, rubbing at the knots in his shoulders. The soap rinses clean, and Tony watches idly as it flows down the drain. 

"Get on your knees," Bruce says, no room for argument. “Present yourself.” 

Tony does as he’s told, fingers splitting himself down the middle. He can feel Bruce’s eyes staring down at him, the caress of the water falling just across him. When Bruce finally kneels, too, Tony wishes he could watch this from the outside. There's the gentle pressure of Bruce's lips, the heat of his mouth sliding against Tony and then there's wet, agile _tongue_ , licking against him. It's too early to beg, and it's not like Tony hasn't had someone put their tongue in his ass before. 

Just, Bruce doesn't seem like the type. At all. 

Tony reaches back, splays a hand over Banner’s. And then he's loose, loose, and tongue pushes its way just inside. 

" _Tony_ ," Bruce says, makes it sound like prayer. His tongue keeps moving, fitting, slip sliding over that little hole. There's no rhythm to it, just simple strokes of idle adoration in Tony's most private--

Bruce shoves his tongue a little further down, starts teasing at the skin just behind Tony's balls. Tony's whole body is arching up, bending and contorting in hopes that he can get more, the soft wet attention that gives him shivery, genuine tendrils of pleasure, muting the pain of the position he's been put in. The pressure builds to an urgent thrum, and Bruce keeps pushing at a lazy pace that makes Tony breathless. 

Tony groans as he splits his legs open wider, leans his ass up higher. Bruce works his way back up, sliding three fingers just inside, licking gently at the stretched-thin skin. 

Tony looks back at him, tries not to groan as he gasps and grabs at too-hard tile and water floating down the drain. It's been hot for so long that he knows it'll turn freezing cold in a second, tries preparing himself for the cognitive dissonance. The water grows colder, colder, until he's gone incredibly soft, reaches down for his dick trying to stroke it back to life but Bruce's hand slides up to his wrist, loops in with his fingers and pulls it away, all counterbalance. 

A finger, gently, slides its way inside again and means it this time, no idle tease. It rubs to find Tony's prostate, then presses down against the tissue with an almost clinical touch. The finger retreats, doubles, and returns to the same spot. Tony's whole body feels heavy, soaked through, his fingers pruned up and his hair stuck to his head and the first fat pearl of ejaculate to spit from his soft dick almost hurts as it falls through him and he turns his head to watch it slide to the drain.

Tony can feel himself turning beet red as he watches another few dregs drip free. He stares, swallows his sweet saliva once more. It’s happening in slow motion, the pressure forcing the come even though nothing he's experiencing would constitute as an orgasm. He feels raw like he’s-- 

"It's all you, mostly," Bruce explains with the kind of detachment that denotes either boredom or a serious medical fetish. If it weren't for the freezing cold water, Tony would probably eroticize either one. 

Tony’s whole body arches and takes advantage of Bruce's touch, rolling back, spreading his legs, head dropping even lower until most of him is on the ground, watching the drain. The water reverses direction on Tony's back, rolls down toward his neck and it feels incredible, too bright and his mouth is cleaved open and it’s impossible for him to say the words, to beg for more. 

"Funny how that works," Bruce points out with another swirl of tongue and pressure. "Tell me what you think you need, Tony. Friction? Heat?" 

Tony need more of this, more of Bruce, something more, anything. It comes out muffled and too emotional and another aching drop of his semen wells on the head of his cock before gravity pulls it down toward the drain. 

"But I'm giving you something, Tony," Bruce says, a hazed out voice with a curious lilt. 

Such a goddamn scientist. 

Bruce’s thumb slides right behind Tony's balls, rubbing in halfhearted circles. His touch is ice cold, but it makes Tony's whole lower half clench up, Bruce's fingers feeling wider, his touch heavier. His free hand slides against Tony's thigh, his chest, up to a nipple that's gone soft. He rubs his thumb across that, too, with the same rhythm of his other hand. Tony's whole body convulses once it’s stiff and Bruce puts pressure on it.

"Just a little longer," Bruce promises. "Let’s take this off." 

Bruce makes quick work of the buckle and the ball gag falls from Tony’s mouth gently. It splashes against the shower tile and cracks with a sickening sound that reminds Tony of breaking bones. Bruce's fingers return to coax at a nipple and then push down his neck, his chin, resting against Tony's mouth. Tony takes the finger past his lips, brushes his tongue against the fingertips, coaxes them in a little further. 

There’s a sudden oncoming desire blooming in Tony’s gut, to be so open. Loose enough to swallow Bruce's knuckles and ride the width of his wrist. His whole body clenches at the thought, sucking around Bruce's fingers and canting upward, backward, so ready and hungry. And suddenly, Bruce's fingers weigh so heavy against Tony's prostate that the come spills from him like water from the faucet above them.

It's the most obscene picture of himself Tony's ever seen, it outdoes leaked sex tapes and hacked dirty photos and planted dirty talk from a life before the monster of the week. It makes him itch everywhere, places he didn’t even knew existed inside him. And maybe, maybe this shows the want for blindfolds and extra pressure and the power play Tony spends so much time wanting doesn’t need to exist between him and Bruce. Maybe there’s another path.

He feels so empty when Bruce's fingers reluctantly, slowly, crookedly slide away, leaving him empty and cold. 

Bruce reaches to flick the shower off as Tony turns around and splays out on the shower floor. He watches as the candy gag slowly dissolves in water as it slowly becomes hot again. Bruce’s erection is willfully, aggressively hard as he sits back, watches. 

"I was thinking of taking a bit of a nap before dinner," Bruce says from across the stall. 

"What're you gonna do about that?" Tony points down between Bruce’s legs. 

"I was hoping you'd come with me," he says. 

"And if I need friction, huh?" 

"I could accept that," Bruce’s mouth tugs into an intoxicated smirk. "We'd just have to take it slow." 

"Slow," Tony repeats. "Sure." 

It doesn’t take very long before he has Bruce spread out flat on his back in bed.

Tony fucks himself breathless, listens to the cadence and tempo of Bruce's every moan, sits square on Bruce hips, stuffed numbingly full. Tony has angled himself so Bruce can see everything when he looks. The sun from the window illuminates the skin around the arc reactor and the scars from years of fighting with his own fragility. That's who Tony is, that's who he's proud of being. And for a fleeting moment Tony wants a picture of this splattered against every tabloid down the Jordaan, thinks of the stories that would get spun, the context read into Bruce’s hand as it reaches for Tony’s shoulder, the look of passion on Tony’s face. 

"To-Tone," Bruce starts, voice breaking. Tony grins down at him, slows his pace even more. 

"Relax.” 

Bruce bites his lip and nods and closes his eyes and tries to scramble to find some leverage. When he can't all he has is the feeling of Tony clenching around him, a firm steady weight on top of him. 

Finally, the strength comes out of nowhere, and Bruce bucks like a mechanical bull in a back alley bar, the momentum rolling in a neat line all the way down his spine. Tony groans, his fingers slipping, his body bowing. Bruce takes the opportunity to roll his hips and push Tony so they're both laying, joined together in an explosion of limbs.

Bruce's hands grab at Tony's thighs, an awkward, fumbling motion but the whole thing feels like he's being shoved up with dick even further. The room fills with the sound of flesh on flesh, the bed creaking as they shove up and push down against each other. Tony looks up, watches the ceiling fan lazily spin in circles, the whole room filled with light and sensation. 

The person he is right now has no context, no need but the building, incremental pressure and lust to _come_. And while Tony knows this artless form has no history or fear inside him, he shakes and wonders how this can be so awful, so perfect. He wonders if Bruce is there with him. 

Bruce's eyes finally slide shut and he tilts his head back and gives everything he has. Tony's orgasm is dry to the bone but Earth shattering, leaves him clawing at the sheets and the flesh of Bruce's calves. And the emptiness inside leaves him with the urge to curl up and sob, panting for air and sanity. 

"Fuck, fuck, _Bruce_ ," he groans, tongue peeking out to wet dry, swollen lips. He falls back onto the bed, feeling partway between a husk and a recharged battery. Bruce's hand reaches down, splays across his stomach. Tony's eyes glance down, and he sees every line in Bruce's body drawn out like surrender. 

They stay like that, so deeply content that movement feels like blasphemy. The weight of Bruce's hand rests gently on Tony's skin, the tips of his fingers a searing heat on Tony's skin. 

Tony rolls over indulgently, in toward Bruce's stomach as it growls. "So about those dumplings…" 

Bruce looks over to him and says, "I'm too high for dumplings." 

Tony hadn't really thought there was such a thing, but hey, "I saw a pub down at the end of the street. It's not like we have any beer or anything here, anyway."

"That is usually important," Bruce nods. “I’ll make you dumplings tomorrow.” 

 

 

 

**Lijnbaansgracht**

"I hate it when they make all the tourists think that the popular beer in a town like this is something like Amstel Light. Who would possibly drink something safe in Amsterdam?" Bruce mutters as he looks over at the taps before the waitress comes over. 

"Wow, you get surly when you're not high anymore, Lima Bean," Tony grins. 

"One of the reasons I stopped smoking a lot in the first place," Bruce nods. “And can we please find one food-related nickname and stick with it?” 

Tony stares at him and raises one elegant eyebrow in surprise. There’s a thin silence between them, something lurking under the surface. “Do you really take that much offense to being likened to a bean?” 

“I’ve eaten them enough in my life to say yes, Tony,” Bruce says, smiling with humor that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yes, I do.” 

The beer selection may be less than impressive, but that Chicken with Bacon was _delicious_. 

 

 

 

 

**Grachtengordel**

Wide hands coax Tony from dreamless sleep. 

Nimble fingers skim across skin. 

They curl gently against the bend of Tony's wrists. The touch is deceptive, as if to marvel at the vulnerability they must inherently hold. He stirs, fingers flicking to caress the back of Bruce's hands. 

Tony hesitates to ask the time. 

It’s impossible not to shiver and purr as Bruce's body lines up against his, the two of them naked from head to heel. Bruce is breathing slow and mindful and Tony knows that sound, knows it so well by now that it coaxes him right out of sleep. Tony turns, catches a brush of mouth-to-mouth. Bruce whimpers, and it sounds like he's been caught off guard. 

"Tony," Bruce says with such need that he sounds like a man begging for water, a junkie needing a hit. Warm, wet lips and wide hands coax Tony even further awake. Tony's eyes open at half-mast, his body responding to every little move. 

"Good morning to you, too," he grins. "Told you Amsterdam would be your kind of city. Not even two days and you're already a charlatan."

"'M sorry I woke you up," Bruce says, softy. "You should go back to sleep. I just needed--" 

"I know," Tony soothes, as their foreheads press together and they lay curled into each other. "But I'm awake, now. I'm not going to let you just roll over and jack it." 

Tony's eyes are already adjusting to the low light well enough to see that Bruce is seriously thinking this over, trying to settle inside himself if this is a good idea. He bites the inside of his lip, and Tony's rolling up against him even further, peppering his 5 o'clock shadow with soft kisses. When his tongue flicks in, Bruce tastes sleep stale with a touch of shitty beer. He tastes like wet dreams in the middle of the night, a lust to alleviate the pressure before he goes back to sleep. 

He can almost even feel when the levee breaks in Bruce's head, as fingertips trace Tony's jaw. He tilts his head back into Bruce's hand, opens his mouth to receive Bruce's tongue like it's divine revelation. Bruce is fleshy and a little sweaty in the hot air of the room. 

After, Bruce's mouth shoves against Tony's ear, words a hot whisper. "Tell me what you want, Tony." 

Where to begin? "I suppose could go another round. You?" 

"You know the likelihood that we'll actually get back to sleep quickly after--" 

"Fuck now, statistics later," Tony replies, "C'mon Banner, _Use_ me." 

Bruce's hands stop still in their tracks. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?" 

"Opportunities like this one don't present themselves often, you know."

"Do you have any idea how much I want to fuck you right now? Finger you open and hold you down and take you? Fuck."

"Fuck yeah," Tony snarls. He's completely awake, now. Tony stretches over, flicks on the desk lamp, snatches up the lube. "That's what I want. It's the middle of the night, Banner. Indulge me. C’mon, fuck me raw." 

In seconds, Bruce's fingers are coated in lube, sliding up into Tony and prodding him open. It's a halfhearted, empty stretch that makes his breath hitch, pelvic muscles flexing like they're autonomous and very hungry for more. 

"I want you screaming for me, I want the neighbors to know," Bruce's voice is low, intense. "Until you don't even know how to make sounds that don't add up to my name. Think you're ready for that?" 

Tony is _definitely_ ready for that.

"Your Christian Bale impression's getting better by the day," he jokes, "quick, say 'I'm the goddamn Batman.'" 

"I'm going to fuck you until you lose it," Banner growls.

Tony's a ball of adrenaline and arousal and seriously, are you kidding? "Good, because I hoped you woke me up for more than just your mediocre attempt at dirty talk, you fucking libertine. I can do better than that and I'm fucking half asleep, Banner. Get your dick and shove it in my ass, already." 

"I'd stop before you start lying to yourself about our relationship, Mr. Stark," Bruce murmurs fondly and then suddenly, Tony's being rolled over, spread out on his stomach against the bed. He goes willingly, not quite pliant but ready for this, ready for the oncoming storm. "You should be careful about the things you demand from me."

And then Tony's being stretched open and filled, fucked, _reamed_ and all he can do is take it, take all of it. Bruce's hands fix around Tony's shoulders for leverage, and it's like another level of restraint has broken away. Tony's head turns, gasping deep as his brows knit and he lifts his leg higher against the bed and feels his body open even wider, yield even more. Bruce grunts behind him, rhythmically choking for air. His cock is body warm, soaked in lube and feels so close, the pillar of another heartbeat inside Tony, running in counterpoint to his own. 

"Fuck me, c'mon," Tony pants as he grabs behind him for Bruce's wrist. Bruce's fingers spread out, winding his fingers into Tony's. 

"See, you're always so quick to crack jokes and then you just become a mess when you get on my dick," Bruce spits, as changes his angle and ruts in deep. They cry out together. 

It feels like indulgence because it's everything Tony's been aching for: all friction, every delicious inch absolutely mind numbing as Bruce bares his teeth and pushes him down. It's rough and every stroke is angled just right until Tony's mouth is hung open and panting for air. 

"Fucking death wish," Bruce barks as he leans down and bites at the tendons of Tony's neck, his hand reaching all the way down to find Tony's cock and give it a ruthless, uncompromising stroke. Tony keens in reaction, writhes with the pressure and tries hard not to just starfish out, pushing his ass up and back as he tries to make this work. 

"Depends on if I’m fucking death," Tony growls, smiling. He rolls his hips back in time and it's just right in every way and in seconds, he's shaking and grasping for the sheets, thrown off by the change of heart in the middle of the night. "Shut me up and make me come, Bruce. I don't want to wait." 

"We’ll have to work on how you beg me," Bruce points out, and then he's working his hips even harder and Tony _is_ turning his head back into the pillow to muffle his screaming. Bruce flicks past Tony's defenses with his other hand to spread it against the network of veins irreparably damaged from the reactor. He whispers, properly. " _Sana aşığım, sevgilim._ " 

And Tony's at the breaking point, curled into Bruce's lap, the two of them completely intertwined. And the tension is cranked up so high and he's completely owned and coming, coming. His ears are ringing and something in the background is beeping urgently and oh, oh _son of a--_


	4. Chapter 4

**Keizerstraat**

Tony startles awake, the morning sun hanging in his eyes even though the window's across the room. The bed is cold, save for the little sliver Tony’s inhabited. The room is empty. 

Bruce has never seen this before. Tony imagines that he'd probably hate it, the ornate decorations crowding such a small space. 

It’s almost been a week. 

Tony passes a hand through his hair, lets it spider over his eyes as he feels the alien weight of Bruce's bracelet hanging on the wrong wrist. It still reads _sedative released_ even as the heart monitor blinks in time with his pulse. Even though they’re still so new, Tony can't think of taking it off, a sign of hope and possession all rolled into one. 

He wonders if Bruce is still wearing the one that used to belong to Tony.

He gropes for his phone, flicks through a fresh set of worried messages from Rhodey and Pepper and Steve he can’t bring himself to care about anymore. He brings up the picture of Bruce's scrawled out note, written into the palm of his hand in Amsterdam. There’s something he’s missed, maybe, some new clue. 

_Get lost.  
Don't look for me.  
Keep your head down.   
See you when I'm done._

Maybe it's a cruel joke, Tony thinks as he stares at the writing that had crawled down his forearm. He phone falls from his hand, bounces on the bed. He stares at the ceiling and tries to pick a spot he likes more than the other spots. He focuses on his breath, tries to imagine every feeling in his body at once. This does nothing to calm him down. 

It's silly: he knows Bruce's fine, and that he shouldn't care and that it's not even like his feelings are hurt. The pang of guilt dances inside him like hands inside his chest cavity. Fear and wonder feed into Tony’s worry and it locks a hold on him, twists its grip on his gut. He remembers the things he left behind in the scramble: Styrofoam fists and cream, the half smoked cigar, toiletries and basics, a strap for a gag that had melted surreally into tile. 

It's been 5 days. Bruce could be dead by now.

A dream is still clouding around the edges of consciousness. It's not about Hulk, no, that'd be too easy when the person Tony's really worried about is pink and lithe and tiny, paper thin skin with the ability to bruise easy. He dreams of Bruce, grey-eyed and naked in the dirt, savage and single minded. He dreams of the fresh-warm blood of some anonymous enemy dripping off long, spindly fingers and asymmetrical palms, clotting in the soil to make a perverted kind of mud. He dreams of Bruce arched with elbows tucked, eyes rolled back, lips pulled back in a snarl.

Bruce doesn't love this, in Tony's dreams, he's no sociopath. He's writhing in anger, self-hatred, the depths of a personal hell that has nothing to do with the other side of him. 

But then the other side comes along, bounds after him, parts the dirt around him to lift him up, swollen green fingers cleaning him off, checking for bruises and breaks. He lays down beside Bruce, picks him up like a doll, rests him on his stomach. Nothing has changed, Bruce is still having the most primordial time, but the Hulk is cradling him, using fingers to rub his back and hold down his hips, to keep him centered. Bruce spreads out on his sidekick's chest, drags blood and dirt along Hulk's skin, writing characters that Tony can’t read but look like a love letter in their sway, their shift. Hulk doesn't seem to mind much, not as long as Bruce is there. 

Tony never finds context, never a definition. No, there's only this vision, a perfect picture in Tony's dreams. 

He’s dreading what Bruce will look like when they see each other again. He dreads what Bruce will think of _him_ and how he's damn near unwound, facial hair trimmed down to near nothing save a salty five o'clock, hair hanging free from the angular style that convinces everyone he's all business. It will get back to the length it was when he came back from Afghanistan, soon. 

He'll finish his project today in SI Skunkworks, hand it over to development and stroll right out, not look back. This distraction has lost its novelty, and to stay in Antwerp, in this small hotel, would be to risk sinking into another depression so vast it would reach its tentacles out into everything Tony has ever touched. He can't afford that, not again, not when Bruce is still out there, not when there are a thousand problems that need solving.

Stark Industries knows of a thousand hidey-holes scattered in Europe's veins. A tour of a few might be in order. 

But first, Tony thinks, _Monaco_. 

 

 

**Rue Bender**

The Cyber Cafe is cliché, but it's been 4 hours and Tony needs the stop. He hasn't listened to music in the car for the last 3 hours, the silence keeping him awake, closing the metal around him. The Mark IV in its little cute briefcase, sits in the seat where Bruce used to be. It is a poor placeholder.

Tony needs the coffee. 

Nobody looks at the car when it pulls over and parallel parks along the viaduct. Nobody cares when a man with sleeves rolled up over his elbows gets out, tugs his briefcase with him to stash it in the trunk. Nobody cares when the guy walks into the cafe, orders a red eye and 45 minutes of computer time. And it's freeing, frustrating. 

He sits, looks out the window at the car, and gets to work. He's 30 minutes into the task when the whole cafe's electricity is gouged. His phone rings. 

"Nick! To what do I owe the pleasure?" 

Nick Fury's voice is flat and disapproving; every time he talks to Tony, the man sounds like he's motherfuckin' tired of these motherfuckin' motherfuckers. Today, he sounds like he's nursing a migraine. "Mr. Stark, how many times must I tell you that SHIELD's cyber defenses were explicitly tailored with you in mind?" 

"Consider it a stress test, then," Tony smiles, even though Fury likely can't see it. He preens, anyway. "Where's Banner?" 

"On assignment," Fury enunciates. 

"Oh come on, like you can't give me any more details than that. I just want to--" 

"I know what you want, Stark. I've seen the tabloids," Fury snaps. 

"Oh come on, you know the Paps are totally grasping for whatever they can find," Tony rolls his eyes in the best Kardashian impression he can muster. "Let me know where Banner is, I just want to know if he's okay." 

"Agent Banner devised the wall that allowed us to trace and cut the power to the cafe you're in without compromising the integrity of the rest of the street." 

"I knew giving Brucey the number for my IT guy was a bad idea," he interrupts with a sigh. "Douchebag even picks up computer languages like a sponge, doesn't he?" 

"He said you'd try, and when you'd fail you'd go on to the next place in town and try there too, you know." 

"What can I say, sometimes I really wish my life were more like _Snow Crash_ ," Tony jokes, raising the cup to his mouth. 

"Well, Mr. Protagonist--" 

Tony has to interrupt, "wait, you've read that book? Wouldn't have pegged you as someone who does a lot of that, no offense. Did you hear the audio book, because I must say Jonathan Davis is mag--" 

"When one of my agents give you- a civilian- an order," Fury says with all the patriarchal bolster he can, "it is advisable that you _follow_. _it_. before you lead all of Western Europe down the path of total information blackout for the duration of your stay. Effective immediately, Luxembourg's high-speed internet access is down for maintenance and will not be up by the end of the week.”

"That's a bit much, Nick," Tony says, like some sort of defensive mother fighting over the punishment of a child. "And besides, I could get my IT guy on it and--" 

"This is your warning, Stark. I would not try this stunt again." 

Tony looks out the window, watches as a traffic cop tickets the Aston. Great, he thinks. "Maybe, I should just not bring my toys back to the good ol' USA to play with you and your bureaucratic superhero boy band anymore. The choreography's getting a bit redundant, don't you think?" 

"Think you're so cute with that fucking bullshit, Stark," Fury snarls as he hangs up the phone. Tony sits and nurses the rest of his drink, even as most of the other patrons get frustrated with their computers and eventually leave. 

He knows he's being petulant.

He knows the only person who owns Bruce is himself. It’s not that different from Rhodey, from Pepper. He knows he’ll never be able to keep them at his side all the time, the people he loves. He _knows_ these things, he’s worked on the abandonment issues everybody likes to envision, he worked until they became battle scars instead of unsightly blemishes. And yet, Bruce hid himself and fled so damn quick, like a figment of Tony’s imagination. 

That’s the point, he muses, the problem of it all. 

If Tony had known, he would have worked his fingers to the bone designing kit for Bruce, sparred with him and put every inch of his being into understanding the dance, the balancing act of supporting someone holding so much. 

They would have executed with stoichiometric precision, balancing this equation of this relationship. They would have worked at it until their fingers bled, toiled away like good little scientists: taken the plane, gone straight to Monaco and spent their time exploring every crevasse of the city, each other, themselves. 

He would have told Bruce the things going on in his head much earlier, before it all went to shit. Bruce would’ve likely pressed his lips together, made that Muppet face again, and advised Tony to be patient. 

Fuck patient. 

Patient will mean he's standing in the rubble after Bruce finds a way to kill himself and take a nest of spies out with him. Tony knows that fear, has stared that demon in the face. And now, he just wants the chance to look into Bruce’s eyes and accept them as they change, even as it frightens him, even as it puts him in danger. 

He still wants, aches for the slow poison Bruce provides. 

His coffee cup is bone dry, mocking him as it rests upon its metal saucer. 

Tony writes down the address for the ticket, and then drives over toward a bank. It's likely a bit unsavory to pull out a wad of his own cash and drive around with it in the glove box, but if Bruce advises Tony go to ground, Tony will do it on his terms. 

 

 

**A31**

Another car ride in silence. No speeding, no fast lane rides through the eastern countryside of France. Discretion, Tony thinks, fitting into the traffic. He's close to disappearing, can feel it inside himself. The thought takes him too close to the past, the last time nobody could find him. It’s a good, healthy fear. 

Tony remembers the first time Bruce left. 

He understood, that first time, the hug at the Port Authority and watching from afar as Bruce looked upon the departure board, putting together the next step, figuring where to go.

There was no space in Bruce for New York, for Stark Tower. Not really.

Tony knew that and didn’t put up a fuss. There wasn’t much mourning. A month and a half later, JARVIS located Bruce in ‘Momofuku@Stark’ just before last call, casually nursing a glass of beer and waiting for the buttermilk chicken. 

Tony walked in as Bruce had eaten. Silently, he sat down in the chair opposite. He stared at Bruce’s stoic face. He’d watched the slow, decadent gyration of Bruce’s strong jaw as he chewed, the bob of his throat as he’d swallowed, the slight droop of Bruce’s eyelids as he savored his meal where Tony imagined he’d wolf it down in desperation. 

The plate was a pile of bones by the time the waitress came around, and Tony whispered his orders in her ear: Bring two more of whatever Bruce was drinking, leave the tap primed at the bar. Lock them in, go home. She’d nodded, and the plate slid out of the way. 

Bruce’s eyes lifted from the plate, focused on Tony. He was silent but so close to a sharp remark about pity or hatred or something else. He’d kept staring, as the woman returned with fresh pints, as the staff turned down the lights, as the doors slid shut with a final click. He stared as if he could see through Stark. His stoic, unmoving face remained unbroken as his eyes started to sparkle with bone-tired excitement in the remaining light. 

It was almost an hour before Tony finally asked, ‘how many people did you save this time?’ 

‘A few.’

‘And none of them bothered to lend you a razor?’ Tony winced, motioning at the mess of uneven beard that had taken to growing across Bruce’s face. ‘I mean seriously, you’ve gone full hipster with the neck beard, grey hair, glasses and flannel combination.’

‘Tips from the world’s foremost authority on ridiculous facial hair. Lucky me,’ Bruce had said, softly as he raised the glass to his lips carefully. ‘I thought you’d be somewhere else.’ 

Tony’s smile had been full of wry happiness and relief. ‘Could say the same thing about you, big guy. Fancy that coincidence.’

Bruce’s smirk had been full and gorgeous and the first real blossom of desire twisted in Tony’s stomach, a wave of it crashing against the space beneath his reactor. ‘Yeah. Fancy that.’

Here and now, he doesn't hate Bruce for doing this to him, he knows it's all survivalism and catch-22s. Bruce is so good at running Tony supposes it’s kind of natural for it to become part of his profession. Doesn't mean Tony has to fit into a pattern of movement Bruce _thinks_ he knows. 

A sign for the A42 passes by, the suggestion of Switzerland in a graceful arrow angled toward the right. Lyon would have been nice, but he hasn't been to Geneva in _years_ and he hears its siren song, the way it tempts him. He imagines what Bruce's reaction would be if he _couldn't_ find Tony in Monaco, or New York, or Malibu, or anywhere else for that matter. 

He wonders how sick Bruce would feel. He imagines the awful, bone deep pain of turning to someone you love and realizing they’ve left. He remembers that empty feeling of realization when Bruce left in New York the first time, the searing loneliness after a few moments of solace in Amsterdam. 

He takes Bruce's advice, and decides its time to get lost. 

He flicks the turn signal on, waits for the truck beside him to pass and switches into the exit-only lane. His stomach clenches with the kind of venomous, selfish excitement he hasn't felt in years, feels it raining down on the car. On him.

Tony remembers the blinding darkness that surrounded the bliss of their first kiss as he accelerates through the curve and dances toward the east.


	5. Chapter 5

**Rue Des Paquis**

Tony parks, promising himself he'll revisit the car once a day. The little garage looks safe enough, and he's shrugged the cover on. Maybe he'll abandon it for a while, buy a cheap Fiat off a lot somewhere on the outskirts of town and take on a drive to Italy or Greece. 

The hotel's supplied him with an embarrassing amount of transit passes and gallery tickets and a fucking _bike_ if he wants. Instead, he stands like he’s not quite himself and struts as he grabs a cup of coffee from a shop across the street. 

He explores the space around the hotel, watches as it transforms into a high street, peppered with boutique after boutique. It's not his favorite style, he's nowhere near young enough to pull off a pair of cigarette-skinny jeans or callous enough to wear neon ethnic print, but he does need something other than the suits he's been wearing and the pair of jeans he didn't even know he brought smell like Bruce. He doesn't have the strength to wear either, right now. 

He stops into a used bookstore looking for a Tom Clancy book to tide him over, but ends up grabbing a French Dan Brown rip-off he thinks would make for a trashy read. He takes lunch in a cafe full of bohemian types: stuffed savory crepes and lamb stew. The day is nice and bright, and he consumes the conflicted, fast moving drama between sips of Moroccan mint tea and scotch. 

People are milling about and the street feels like it’s buzzing. He grabs a pair of sneakers after lunch, knows he’ll need them to use the bike tomorrow. It’s been at least a decade. 

The next night, he does find a translation of _The Hunt For Red October_ , reads it while idly sketching blueprints for guns he'll never make. The woman at the table next to him sips on her glass of wine and attempts not to look as if she's interested or impressed. Any other time, any other version of himself would have put Jack Ryan away for a while, sliding over and grinning with charisma. He just looks up from his book, smiles thin and closed-lipped in recognition and then flicks the page over in his notebook, starting fresh once more. 

The day after, he takes the trip to CERN as a tourist in too baggy clothes and armed with forcefully bad pronunciation. They let him go on the French-speaking tour anyway. He finds a beaten up English copy of _Zero Day_ , gnarled and thickened and looking like it's had a rough time. He holds it like it's going to burst apart in his hands, and reads it in the hotel courtyard until he's shutting the back cover and inches away from passing out. 

_Screen Shot_ , _Worm_ , _Angelmaker_ , and _The Gone Away World_. French words he's never heard or read before and looks up on his phone. Old Town's walls curve in around him like a mother's arms whenever he descends that way. He snaps shots of ancient Swiss architecture and sends them to Pepper, a picture of a Swiss soldier memorial and flicks it off to Steve and Rhodey. He imagines they open them and grumble about _Tony Stark's European Sabbatical_ , likely in each other's direction. 

It rains. The anger and melancholy cool in soft eggshells and reds of his hotel room. He peels more bills off the roll of money in the hotel safe, and he deposits yet another dented used book into the milk carton library he's been building in the Aston's trunk. 

He drinks. 

Rosti and polenta, the occasional indulgence in roast rabbit instead of chicken. He cowers into his jacket and considers another cup of coffee before he finishes this chapter, watching the rain from the café window. 

He knows nobody actually lives like this, but routine’s too sweet and he’ll have to depart, soon. Pity, that. He could see himself staying here for months, devouring cheap fiction and pretending he doesn't secretly imagine Bruce is the main protagonist, the unassuming scientist turned spy turned freedom fighter. He’s well fed every night, thankful for the soft bed and happy to be in a place in his life where he's a little okay with being left alone with his demons, free from the lust of recognition or pressure. 

He wanders from the cafe to the hotel, from the courtyard to his room. He flops the book down onto the bed, walks into the bathroom. He comes back in his boxers, burrows into too soft sheets, and flicks the light on to read once more. He's so close to finishing, can already taste how this one ends, isn't even going for his own pleasure anymore. The energy slips from his body and he can feel himself slowly fade into sleep, his eyes floating closed. 

Tony's eyes fly open, and he goes breathless. 

"Hello, Mr. Stark," Bruce says, easy and careful and _sterile_ in a way that Tony's only ever heard from Coulson, back when that guy was livin' the dream. He's sitting in a chair at the desk in the corner, stuffed into an ill-fitting G-man suit. The curls of his hair have been cut down and he is not wearing his glasses. "Told you I'd see you when I was done." 

There's a plate of figs and the rind of a piece of brie along the heel of a baguette and bar of chocolate on the desk. There’s a clear bottle full of what must be liquor and two brandy glasses set alongside. Bruce picks up a fig, hesitates before biting into it and chewing. It's an elegant, effortless move. It is seductive to the core. 

Tony sits up in bed, feels a little scared. “How did you find me?” 

Bruce acts as if he does not hear the question, swirling the clear liquor in his glass before taking a deep drink. "I've only had this kind of brandy once before. It's very good, if you would like a glass." 

“I don’t drink brandy,” Tony’s mouth thins out into a determined line. "You're the world's most mediocre Bond villain impersonator, _Agent_ Banner." 

The room is dim, Bruce didn’t turn any extra lights on whenever he set up shop. Still, Tony can see Bruce's bandaged knuckles and neck, the grit and double entendre smeared across his face. "I try, Mr. Stark." 

"How did you find me? And where have you been for the last few weeks? And seriously, why would you ever give Fury that firewall idea? I thought we were friends. I thought we were more than--" 

Bruce's grey eyes are shining in the dark. "That's classified, Mr. Stark." 

"You expect this to happen frequently, in the future?" Tony asks. 

"That's," Bruce pauses. His breath hitches like he's getting off on this, sadistic fucker, "classified, Mr. Stark. Any more questions about the nature of this situation?" 

And maybe this is the person Bruce is when he's at 'work,' frustrating and mysterious and full of untold power: this is the wall he puts up so he can be a proper mercenary. Tony closes his eyes to that word, remembers the dreams of Bruce with someone else's blood on his hands. 

Bruce breaks off a corner of from the stylized bar, and slips it into his mouth.

"How many weapons do you have on you right now?" 

"This room is made of weapons, Mr. Stark. You'd know that, if your airport thrillers have any shred of truth to them," Bruce replies as he takes another drink. Tony curses himself for not closing the book, putting it away before bed. "Do you want to know how many I have on my person as an assurance of personal safety, or because you find the thought of me concealing weapons incredibly arousing?" 

Tony waits a beat, "You know it's both." 

"Yes," Bruce's smirk is the hottest thing Tony's ever seen, and if he weren't so sure this were a dream, and he didn't feel so damn angry, he'd be putty in Bruce's hands. Banner's eyes narrow and he's savage and gorgeous as he says, "yes, I do."

There's a knock on the door, " _Concierge, Monsieur_." 

Bruce's smirk slides clean off his face. "Excuse me, Mr. Stark." 

"Please," Tony says, and flicks a hand toward the door. 

Bruce rises to his feet and walks away. Tony cannot see the door, but he can hear the sound of it unlocking, the low, murmured French that gets subtly more and more heated. So, he takes matters into his own hands. His underwear is suitably tight enough to cause a scandal, so he doesn't even bother with a robe or the comforter. The man at the door has been told that Mr. Edward is expecting to be alone, and sounds worried about that order changing. 

That's the beauty of real boutique hotels: their service. 

"Où est Monsieur Edward? Vous ne pouvez pas signer." 

Tony doesn't give Bruce a chance to respond. He simply wraps his arms around Bruce's middle and fits his face in the corner of Bruce's neck that doesn't have a bandage on it. "Mon cher," he purrs, can feel Bruce's posture go stiff under his touch, "viens te coucher, s’il te plait."

Bruce's jaw sets, and Tony imagines his eyes are hardened, set upon the blushing concierge who looks on to the point of stammering. "Il veut te voir," Banner says, simply. 

"J'ai votre miel, monsieur," The young man tells them, beet red now. 

"Bon, bon," Tony nods. "Où m'inscrire?" 

The check gets set in front of him, and he reaches into Bruce's inner suit pocket for a pen. The nib clicks out, and Tony quickly scribbles a fake signature against the page. He clicks the pen back in and slides it gently back into Bruce's pocket after they're done.

Before the guy can hand him the small bag, Tony's already extracted himself, purring, "amenez-toi le miel, mon cher?" 

Bruce replies, breathlessly, "bien sûr, mon amour." 

Bruce is finishing the pleasantries as Tony leans back against the desk, his head hanging from nostalgia and grief and seething anger that he's trying so hard to control, because he knows its the right thing to do. He owes it to himself. And even though Bruce does not act as if he deserves it, he owes this act of restraint to Bruce as well. 

Bruce grabs the bag he's brought with him, and pulls out a kit. He does not make a show of extracting the guns, knives with bloody and gnarled edges, and Tony has to clench his fingers around the edge of the desktop because all he wants is the chance to design for Bruce. He feels the itch to make weapons in a way he hasn't in years, things he's never even made before but could fit to Bruce's body, his hands like only someone with intimate knowledge would craft. 

"We'll be in the papers, tomorrow." 

"Yes, Mr. Stark, I suppose we will," Bruce says. He sounds as though he has no opinion on the matter, which is a new one, frankly. "The European press has been pining, I suppose. Have you kept up?" 

"No," Tony says, as he turns and pours himself two fingers of liquor into the glass, looking at the bottle. A quick swirl and he raises it to his lips: black cherry brandy, sweet and understated dances along his tongue. Incredibly Victorian aristocracy, when Tony thinks about it. Very Bond villain-chic. 

"Allow me to brief you," Bruce says. He hesitates, before flicking himself out of the jacket. "There were pictures of us taken on the _Hollandia_ , I suppose the bartender recognized us and decided to post a candid to a social media page. There were pictures of you walking down the street in Amsterdam, and then pictures of us on the deck. SHIELD found a picture of me kissing Agent Hill on the cheek at a taxi-stand and you at a cafe in Antwerp. Rumors alleged that we'd had a jagged breakup because you'd had an illicit late night tryst with a Formula 1 driver you'd snuck in a few rides with at Goodwood, and I sequestered a supermodel to help me feel better."

"Lewis?!" Tony squawks. "When I told people I snuck a ride with him, I didn't mean it like I'd snuck a ride _in_ him. And what’s this supermodel business?" 

"You of all people should know how the press generates all sorts of scandals by now," Bruce says, sounding utterly bored with the idea as he unzips his pants and toes out of his shoes. "England's tabloids call us 'Stanner,' the Dutch call us 'Brony', Spaniards call us 'Truce'. The French have my favorite, personally. _'Copains scientifique'_.'"

"You like it when people call us ‘science boyfriends,’" Tony says, flatly. "Maybe I should be making off with world champions if you have that kind of attitude." 

"What can I say, I'm old fashioned," Bruce lowers his head, undoing the buttons on his shirt. "The American press have yet to find a snappy name to call us beyond 'part of the Gay Superhero Epidemic.' I believe they caught wind of Steve and Jim." 

"I'm pretty sure it's because Steve's the kind of guy who can't be discrete and in love at the same time. Rhodey just gives him a pass," Tony shrugs, raises a fig to his mouth. Bruce is disrobing slowly, pulling the cloth away from his body to reveal miles of bruises and bandaged skin. "How'd they let you out of Shield Medical like that? You’re like walking yellow cake." 

The fruit is sweet and ripe and meaty, the flesh snapping under Tony's teeth. He washes it down with a bit of the brandy as Bruce takes the ice bucket and fills it with hot water. He returns to the bureau, grabs the oxford shirt. 

"Simple,” Bruce replies, “you never check in." 

And this whole charade just makes Tony even angrier. He feels the urge to throw the brandy glass at the wall, so he does the sensible thing and puts it down. He walks to the center of the room where Bruce can see him in the mirror, "so let me recant to you the last month from my perspective, here. I take you on vacation. We fuck, we fuck some more, we decide to fuck in new places. And then it goes tits-up. You dump all this information in my lap, pull a 'honeypot' over on me, leave in the middle of the night…” 

“That was far from a ‘honeypot,’” Bruce interrupts. “Those operations aren’t like the ones in the movies.” 

“Don’t interrupt me,” Tony hisses. “You block every single attempt I can make to find you, spend two and a half weeks away doing lord knows what. And then you come here and think you can be all enigmatic and resourceful and _bloody_ and think I'll just roll over and say yeah, everything's alright? Well, everything’s not alright, Agent Banner.” 

Bruce peels back the bandage on his neck, revealing a wound that makes it look like someone took a bite out of him. He slowly, deliberately wads up a piece of the Oxford shirt, dips it in water and dabs at the wound. 

"I gave you warning," Bruce replies, completely stoic. 

"And you think a few hours of warning was enough?" Tony growls. He can see himself turning red with the tendrils of anger spreading through him. His reactor’s glowing with excitement. “You think a few hours warning makes sedating me okay? You think a few hours warning doesn’t mean that I stand there praying to whoever might listen that you aren’t one of the dead bodies in the Peugeot that got smashed with a large piece of masonry on the other side of the canal?”

“You didn’t like that trick?” Bruce’s mouth twitches, one side stretching in an amused smile. “Pity, it seemed remarkably elegant at the time.” 

“You’re fucked up. _This_ is fucked up. You think this is normal? This nowhere near normal,” Tony says, his voice breaking over the words, over a humorless laugh. “And I’m glad you told me, so I didn’t think you’d run off because you didn’t want to be here anymore like everyone else who’s ever mattered. But…how? Just, how did you get buried under all this shit?” 

"You have been fully read into the situation. I’ve given you all of the information you’ve been cleared to know, Mr. Stark," Bruce says. "The paperwork for even that took _weeks_." 

"Drop the formalities, Agent," Tony sneers. 

Bruce's hands slam down against the bureau's countertop, hard enough that everything on the surface jumps. Tony's breath hitches, and raw fear cuts through him like a knife. The Mark IV’s in the hotel room safe, Tony estimates that it would take two and a half minutes to open the safe and get into the suit completely. A lot of smashing can happen in two and a half minutes. His eyes start pouring over Bruce's skin, looking for a blossom of sickly green and hoping it will not occur. 

"Alright, _Tony_ , you want to know what I do when I'm working? I reap, I’m a death dealer, I’m a land mine. I wipe out _armies_ of people who think they can get one over on me and I collect the bodies of the people who got in the way. I'm a weapon just like all the ones you made to hunt me down." Bruce's voice sounds mutinous. "And you fell for it, just like they all do. You underestimated me, the person I am. You estimated the monster in me when it focuses in to _dismantle_. And I try so hard not to show it to you, not to show it to any of you because you don’t deserve that, but it’s there, and it’s all I can think about sometimes."

"That's what Fury's paying you to do when you're there, Rambo? Be a one man black ops team?" Tony snaps. 

Bruce's eyes lock with Tony's in the mirror. "It even scares the Hulk, sometimes." 

"Does…" Tony hesitates because anything scaring the Hulk is pretty new, "does he wish you guys were property, comparatively speaking?" 

Bruce's eyes snap shut and he hunches over like he's in pain and Tony knows he's asking the big guy, but he looks so weak and…"Hulk tired of people think Hulk not person. Banner not property.”

“Spoken like a lawyer. Ever think of adding a JD to that impressive academic—“ 

Bruce interrupts, mouth rolled into an ugly, awkward smile, “Hulk like Tin Man. Hulk want Banner keep Tin Man safe. Banner did job. Tin Man safe."

That’s unnerving as fuck. "Was I actually in danger?" 

Tony feels like he's hearing something polysymphonic and earnest in Bruce's grit-ridden "yes."

It's like all sides of him, the ruthless Agent, the Incredibly Strategic Hulk, and the man Tony _lov_ \- please don't make him say it right now, are all in agreement. And it's terrifying and arousing and in desperate need of solid ground and the anger falls like water from Tony's body. 

"I could have helped, if you just asked," Tony breathes. 

"You weren’t even supposed to know.” 

“Why?” Tony asks. “Why can’t I know? Why can’t I help you?” 

“Because that's what they want, Tony. They would have kidnapped you, and tortured you and taken you through to the depths of hell just for _fun_ , because they believe your kind of good does not, and should not exist. They don't believe in redemption, and we both know you're the corporate poster boy for being redeemed. They want a life without men like you, Tony. This is a different breed of evil than you’re equipped for." Bruce hisses, looking back at Tony in the mirror. "If you would have shown up in the armor, blaring Poison as your personal entrance music, you would have been the catalyst for a massacre. It might not mean much to you to have another group of innocent people’s blood on your hands but--" 

“Don’t go there, Banner,” Tony warns, and he can feel himself preparing to drag this fight out long and deep, “Don’t.” 

“You don’t understand. I put myself in play so that you wouldn’t have to risk ‘going there’, wouldn’t have to convince yourself of ‘acceptable losses’. I told you to get lost so it’d be harder for them to find you. I should have put myself in play sooner so they didn’t think you were a bargaining chip after the papers started talking about us.” Bruce shakes his head. “They were across the street from us in Amsterdam. I saw them, I recognized them. They were watching. They were looking at you and me and they saw the one thing they needed: opportunity. Do you know what it feels like to have someone look at you and see that kind of opportunity? It is not a good feeling, Tony. It’s not a feeling I want you to experience because I failed to do my job.” 

Tony’s face darkens. “How did you--“

“I got my assignment the night before we went to England, Tony, and I looked Fury in the face and declined,” Bruce groans. “I almost got you killed because I gave something important away to go with you.” 

“Don’t you think that’s a bit overdramatic?” Tony asks.

“No,” Bruce says, staring. “Because you’re a civilian and a non-participant. You went about your life, and they forgot they painted a target on your back. They were too busy to kidnap you, poison you, torture you. They were too busy because they had me to deal with. That’s what had to happen, otherwise you’d already be dead.” 

“And this is what you do?” 

“Sometimes. Not always. Not often, even.” Bruce says. “I do a lot of humanitarian missions, environmental ones, too. But to focus on those and ignore the fact that sometimes things get nasty and messy and I have to show myself to be the monster I really am would be selling you a lie, Tony.” 

“And there’s nothing I can do about it,” Tony sighs. "I wish things could be different." 

"I wish they could be, too," Bruce says, flatly. "But these kinds of things don’t change in the way you did. And honestly, if it weren’t for how I feel about you, I wouldn’t even want them to be different. I have to bring this out. I have to exercise it, because I wouldn’t ever be quiet otherwise. I’d never see peace. So, I am the man who brings the gun to the knife fight, now. And this is where we are, Tony." 

There's a lattice of bruises and bandages on Bruce's back. Maybe he'd taken on a full group of strong men at once before letting the hold on Hulk loose. Tony walks up beside Bruce, reaches for his free hand. The bracelets clink, deftly. 

“I guess it is,” Tony says, somberly. There’s blood underneath Bruce’s fingernails. Pepper’s never come home with blood on her hands, and Rhodey’s never looked at him like he couldn’t understand fighting in a war of shadows. This will be a change. “I just want you to be safe.” 

Bruce’s mouth curls into a wistful smile. “You and I have very different definitions of the word ‘safe.’” 

Tony reaches over for the oxford shirt, ripping the fabric in half and raising his half to clean the wounds Bruce can't reach. Bruce sighs into the touch.

“Get the brandy,” Bruce orders and Tony walks over, refills the glasses before bringing the rest. Bruce douses another part of the cloth with it and slowly, painfully cleans the wound on his neck. 

"So what's the honey for?" Tony presses his lips together and asks. 

"Antibiotics," Bruce replies. 

"Could you be more specific, Doctor?" Tony feels the shudder of Bruce's skin over the change in title.

"Raw honey heals wounds faster than artificial antibiotics, takes care of the smell and the itch, protects from staph. Fewer scars, fewer chances to fuck up. Also, it’s easier to get a hold of in areas that are on the look out for, say, wounded soldiers,” Bruce notes, “You should be careful. My blood’s got the highest statistical potential for giving you radiation poisoning of all my bodily flu-" 

“Fuck you,” Tony has no patience for the meek and mousey routine, right now. Under the curve of Bruce’s pec, there’s a place where chest hair ends and stitches begin in a long line down his side. Tony reaches down, pours brandy into the separate end of the cloth he’s holding and raises it to dab at the wound. "You gave those to yourself?" 

"What good is a field medic who can't sew himself back up?" Bruce asks.

They stay like that for a long while, as Bruce spoons out honey from the jar onto thickened strips of gauze and gets Tony's help taping them into place. 

“So why do you have gauze on hand but not proper antibiotics or medical grade alcohol?” Tony asks. 

Bruce chuckles, an old weary sound. “You know I can’t even count how many times I’ve been made in pharmacies and clinics. These are the emergency supplies I always carry.” 

“I know that you think this is ugly,” Tony says, softly. “I know that you think this is something I don’t want to see, that it’s rotten and you’re trapped and weak…”

“I don-”

“Let me finish,” Tony snaps. “I don’t care. I don’t _care_ about how ugly and rotten you think you are. I just want you to be honest, because I can’t make you happy any other way. I’m not asking you to do much changing. We can’t always be together and I know that, I’m just asking for you to…” 

“Be mindful that I’m not alone anymore?” 

Tony leans in, molds himself against Bruce’s back as carefully as he can, now that the wounds are all properly dressed. He smells sticky sweet and sweat-salty and Tony can feel the last dregs of anger drain from him. “Yes.”

Bruce nods, and Tony feels the skin against his hands and lips pull tight with the tension of the movement. 

"Look," Bruce eventually says, "I'm sure you want to do some more screaming and fighting and I owe you that, I'm not trying to take that away from you but I need sleep. I haven't slept in six days." 

“Six days, Banner? Jesus,” Tony's eyes narrow. "Listen, I'll trade you. No more fighting if you let me take care of you. And maybe let me spoon." 

"You and the goddamn cuddles," Bruce grumbles. Bruce turns to him, leans the two of them in forehead to forehead. Tony's arms reach around him, hold him at the waist like it's so second nature even though it's all happened so quickly and even though he thought he'd be able to fight it. "Okay, deal. Just…be gentle with me, okay?" 

Tony leans in from underneath and gives Bruce a kiss so fierce it feels a bit like that kiss of life everyone likes to talk about. Bruce tastes like fruit and chocolate and booze and _him_ , a man starving for days before allowing himself the lavish entrapments life could provide. Bruce holds onto him like he needs this, like he won't heal if he doesn't have Tony's support, and-- "Hold on, notebook, _notebook_." 

Tony tears away, wide eyed. That was so enjoyable. "What?" 

Bruce is blushing and hunching over and adjusting his (no, _Tony's_ ) little heart monitor and fidgeting with his glasses and turning a fantastic shade of red in the dim light, "I'm sorry, it's too much. It's not like I don't want it but you're stretching my stitches and it feels like they might have been trying to pop and like you said before, we're not at SHIELD medical." 

Then all that’s left is to go to bed. 

“I think I’m going to take a shower,” Tony says. “Think you’ll be able to fall asleep?” 

“You need some time to yourself,” Bruce says. “I understand. Go. I’ll be fine.” 

It hasn’t even been an hour and a half and Bruce is already back to reading him like an open goddamn book, spine broken to lay flat on his table. “Don’t beat yourself up about this.” 

Bruce kisses Tony on the cheek, swollen over with affection and wistful sorrow. “I won’t. Eat some of that chocolate, Tony. It’s very good.” 

Bruce walks over to the bed, lowers himself gingerly to lay in the place Tony was before all this started. Tony walks over, lowers a finger to the chocolate on the plate. He breaks a piece off the bar, slips it in his mouth. It melts gently against the heat of his tongue. He remembers why he’s abstained during this trip. Swiss chocolate means warmth and love and safety to him, it always has since he was a child. Up until 5 minutes ago, it was apparent that illusions of love and safety would serve no purpose, here. 

Tony forces himself to clear his mind in the shower and resolutely does not bother with the rest. Bruce is snoring gently by the time Tony comes to bed. 

Tony wakes up first, understandably, so he ventures outside once more, dropping the book into the milk carton in the Aston. He walks down the street and ducks in, grabbing another pair of jeans before getting the two of them breakfast. 

He's in the middle of _The List_ when Bruce rolls over suddenly in bed. His eyes are wide open like he doesn't know where he is, but once he sees Tony he deflates in relief. 

"Oh, good," he groans as his head hits the pillow again. He gropes for his glasses, fits them to his face. 

Tony tosses the book onto the desk, holding the bag from the patisserie in one hand and the jeans in the other. "Okay, Jolly Green. I have pants and pain au chocolat. Which one's first?" 

Bruce makes a wordless grabby hand motion at the paper bag, and Tony lowballs it into the bed, landing next to Bruce as he sits up, wincing. He grabs the extra cup and prepares Bruce’s coffee, two sugars and no cream. Bruce eats as if he’s starving, groaning, underserved by running and the SHEILD commissary. By the time he's walked over to sit on the edge of Bruce's side of the bed, Bruce has made room for him, sliding just a little deeper toward the middle of the bed. Tony puts the cup in Bruce’s hands and takes the empty bag away, balling it up and chucking it to the trash can. 

"How'd you sleep?" Tony asks. 

"Not very well," Bruce sighs. "Healing's the worst part. And I was worried about you and if they got to--"

Tony curls an arm around Bruce's shoulders, gently. "They didn't, so you don't have to worry about it." 

"I always worry about you, Tony," Bruce murmurs, and even though it has to hurt him everywhere, he leans up and in for a kiss, a gentle flick of lips and tongue against Tony's.

"I have a question," he asks. "That night when you left." 

"Yeah?" 

"What did you tell me in my ear? Before the sedative kicked in. It sounded…"

"Turkish," Bruce replies. " _Sana aşığım_."

Bruce wraps his tongue around those vowels and makes them sound incredible. Tony can feel his mouth go dry. "That's it. What does it mean?" 

Bruce stares at Tony as if he’s debating telling the truth. "That…that I'm falling in love with you." 

The cadence of his voice and those words are heart stopping. And Tony’s totally closing his eyes at that and little alarm bells are going off in his head and it's irrelevant because before he knows it, he's kissing Bruce. Bruce, who looks bruised and battered and torn open from the waist up and incredibly insecure because ‘ _I’m a monster, Tony_ ’ but he tastes like sweat and honey and chocolate and flesh in a way that makes Tony stop caring about anything else. And that rhythm's back, that feeling that tugs at the center of Tony's core, that thing he didn't even realize he'd been needing. 

“It’s taking everything I have right now not to make you pop your stitches,” Tony strains, his voice down to a whisper. He’s never been more thankful for layers of denim and the Egyptian Cotton of the duvet as it pools around Bruce’s torso at the waist, cooling the temptation of revealing and taking, savoring, having. 

And Bruce sounds utterly broken, laying in bed, “When I heal, I'll show you exactly how I want to get fucked, Tony. I'll tell you about it while I prepare myself for you. You couldn’t imagine it if you tried, just how tight I am, how sensitive I'll be. Because I've been dreaming of how you'd split me in half for weeks.” 

Tony's gasping for air and clutching at Bruce's sides, hoping to god he hasn't dug his fingers into one of Bruce's wounds. His eyes are closed and he's imagining what it will look like, what it will feel like, the person Bruce will become when they fuck again, whenever that will be. God, it's something Tony could never bring himself to ask for but he can feel the need skimming along every surface inside him until he's shaking with the anticipation of how good it’d look. 

"I know you’re hard. And I wish I had the strength to—“ 

“No, no,” Tony chokes out. “Just tell me I can. Please, just tell me it’s okay.” 

Bruce’s eyes are slowly turning green, but he looks so hopeful, so wonderful like that and Tony’s helpless to do anything but kiss him again, taste and feel.

“Lay beside me, Tony,” he says, softly. It’s just short of an order. “On your back?” 

He has no say in the matter, as he rolls further into the bed. The sheets are pulled taut, and he watches as Banner rolls onto his side gingerly. 

“Undo your pants,” Bruce says, “let me see you.” 

The button, the zipper fly, the shimmy of a loose waistband against the small of Tony’s back. He hauls himself free from the underwear, the long column of his erection springing free. Tony tries to stop, breathe, think of ways to stave the desperation off. 

“Touch yourself,” Bruce’s voice lilts into a dreamy, melodic singsong. “Like you did before you met me, like you did while I was gone.” 

Tony closes his eyes and imagines a woefully empty room, ignores the pair of eyes on him and slowly drags dry fingers up the skin of his erection. The thumb presses just the right spot, and it’s easy to catch the precum that comes out, use it for lube. 

“You've been so patient and put up with so much. God, it's so close I think I can taste it, how you'd take me so hard I'd feel it in the back of my throat.” Bruce crowds in, watching so intently that Tony has to close his eyes and turn his head away before the only thing he can do is kiss and suck and have. “Show me. Show me how you want to be touched.” 

A pause to drag a messy tongue over his fingers and palm, and then he rolls his hand against the base, flicking up over himself in a long, uncompromising stroke. “Oh, fuck.” 

“You’re beautiful like this,” Bruce whispers. “And I keep thinking about how you wouldn't let up until I'm screaming your name and how you'd keep me on the verge of coming for eternities.”

“Banner, God Bruce,” Tony shudders, thinking of it, their bodies twisting together in a new arrangement, Bruce’s long drawn howl and his breaking point. He’s stroking himself faster now, his other hand resting against his chest, fingering at a nipple gently over his shirt. The soft fabric scratches against him with just the right kind of annoyance. 

“How you'd use everything you’ve spent your life learning to keep me coming for hours, dry me out in record time. I want that, Tony, I want you to make me come so hard and so long that just touching me days after would make me come _dry_ ,” Bruce murmurs as his hand reaches out, traces the line of Tony’s straining face, his neck. “How you’d touch me, the same way you’d touch yourself. How you’d drive me crazy.”

Tony falls silent, because this isn’t a performance and he’s showing far too much of himself. He leans back, his eyes flicking shut and he breathes in slow, taking care of himself, taking care to leave nothing of himself out of Bruce’s view. 

“You’re doing so good,” Bruce coaxes, “One last thing. Take your hands away.”

The tension is so high between them Tony feels like a marionette as he flicks his hands down into the comforter. He looks over at Bruce with lazy, half-opened eyes, shocked when Bruce meets them. It’s all curled toes and shivers and groans from there. 

“Come, Tony." 

Tony’s jaw drops gently and he can’t find his own voice to let Bruce know this is what he needs but he comes so desperately he sees white and feels his come bleed into the cloth of his jeans.

On command. 

After, Tony tries to catch his breath. He's going to have to change, but he feels too lazy to do anything right now other than ask, "how are you so good at dirty talk, now?" 

"Maria gave me a book," Bruce says.

"I'm choosing to ignore the fact that Maria Hill gave you relationship advice." 

"It wasn't quite 'relationship advice.'" 

"So there’s a SHIELD guide to talking sexy," Tony grins. 

"It was more the SHIELD guide to building anticipation before properly handing someone’s ass to them. I just adapted some of it.” He shrugs. 

“Any way you could do me a solid by smuggling out a copy of said book? I could use some brushin’ up,” Tony jokes. Bruce covers his face with a palm in reply. “I was thinking this morning, I'll call my friends up at OK and suggest a proper name for American tabloid readers. 'Rage against the Machine', maybe.” 

"Sure, as long as you make sure to tell them when we made the very serious decision to commit ourselves to becoming Mortal Kombat characters," Bruce says, as if he's really looking out for Tony's best interests, here. 

Tony rolls back in toward Bruce, fits his head into the negative space of Banner's neck and shoulder, laughs until he can’t see straight. 

Bruce's hand creeps up under Tony's shirt, fingers stroking the skin of Tony's back. He gasps for air, arching his back into the touch, "I missed you so much." 

"I know," Bruce replies, "I missed you too." 

Every curve and line in Tony's body is pushing against this, carefully, so he just comes right out and says it, "I've always loved you. You know that? It’s been all over my face for months, it’s been obvious, right?” 

“I’ve been avoiding it,” Bruce admits. “I thought I would find some way hurt you.” 

“My life would be very different if I’d ever lived it like I was trying not to get hurt, Banner,” Tony says, assertively. “Finish your coffee and put on some pants, I'm taking you for a walk to the lake." 

"I thought that sentence was going to end with 'Monaco', seeing as last time--" 

"There is no way in hell I'm going to Monaco 10 minutes after you got back looking like you got into a fight with a tire iron and lost." Tony says, patting Bruce on the chest as softly as he can while still getting the point across. "Talk to me about it in a few days." 

 

 

 

 

**Rue Prévost-Martin**

Bruce's healing has been slow, but he looks much better than he did that first night. The skin on his knuckles has scabbed over, the stitches are almost ready to be taken out. After days of confusion, the hotel staff now understands that Bruce is his companion, taking bed-rest after a taxing stint in a nameless, war-torn country. It sends a shiver down Tony’s spine when he hears members of the staff say it to one another. 

They take the half hour walk to the cafe shoulder to shoulder. Majestic buildings of glass cede to everywhere Europe: houses shoved against each other in long, beautiful rows as if they're curling in for warmth. Bruce knows the way, so he leads through the turns and bends and shortcuts, ropey alleys and side streets. They pass a thousand nondescript tearooms in thin-lipped silence. 

The plaid shirt hanging off Bruce's body looks good on him, accentuating swells of muscle in his arms and the long column of his back, hiding patchy healing skin. He looks younger in it and a pair of Tony’s jeans, walking down a street in a less than spectacular area. 

There’s a snap of a shutter, and another, and another. Their picture is being taken. Tony wonders what the two of them look like in a paparazzo's camera. He wonders if the language of their bodies is so easily read to anyone on the outside looking in. He can’t find the photographers, and it’s not like they’re being heckled- Tony is usually treated with a little more respect than that. Bruce just smiles, an awkward and private curve of lips and eyes with thin streaks of green under 10 dollar wayfarers. He turns to Tony, shows him everything. Tony reaches for his hand. 

The place Bruce takes him is nondescript from the outside, black letters in little white circles hinged on the doors of mismatched houses. Inside, it looks like a large toy store, gadgets and inexplicable trinkets, throwaway thrills of engineering. Bruce looks back at him, and Tony furrows his brow. Bruce pivots on a foot, brings his body in close, and lets their lips softly brush. _Trust me_.

There's a curtain hanging loosely in the back of the store, and when they push past there's a cafe, wide expansive walls reminiscent of a gallery or studio. A large bonsai tree springs from the ground and hangs over a large skylight. Tables and chairs and couches radiate outward in a mismatch of bohemia. Tony takes it in, the sights and smells and movement of the people here, students dancing through problem sets as wait staff flutter about. He watches as Bruce breathes deep, lets all the tension out of his body, and walks forward with newfound purpose. 

Bruce meditates under the canopy of the tree while Tony nurses his cup of coffee, sits back and reads _The Hades Factor_. 

"Please," Bruce breaks the silence with a dulcet, dreamlike tone. His eyes are still closed, like he's achieved full enlightenment, or whatever you try to achieve while meditating. "Please tell me that hasn't been what you've done with your time since I left." 

"What?" 

"Shave your goatee and read incredibly shitty books. Not to say I'm complaining about the lack of stylized facial hair. You looked like a Warlock during Goodwood." 

"You know, accepting critique is a solid portion of trendsetting. I appreciate the feedback. But it's not like that's all I've done," Tony points out. "Made a new kind of silicone, sketched out some guns, designed some new modifications to the suit, went shopping, picked up my dry cleaning…Evaded whichever forces were attempting to take advantage of my do-gooderism. I'd say that's quite a haul for things done in your absence. Hell, I even hacked SHIELD." 

"Yeah, Fury told me that one," Bruce grins. 

"Don't look so smug," Tony replies. "I'm sure the city of Luxembourg was very unhappy that it couldn't update its Facebook status." 

"Impermanence is an important lesson in life, Tony," he says, sagely.

"My ass. You did that because you knew it would appeal to the self-aware tendencies I have cultivated an affinity for," Tony replies. "In my defense, I have been a discerning reader of incredibly shitty books." 

"No more 50 shades?" 

"It didn't fit the criteria," Tony shrugs. "No shy, scientifically savvy and smart leading man with an incredible sense of honor and all the opportunity to make the right decisions and end up saving the world, of course." 

"Now, Tony, that's just _embarrassing_ ," Bruce says. 

"Not sure why," Tony leans in. "And this one's even better, cause there's an evil-genius gazillionare scientist that kinda reminds me of myself, here and I must say the chemistry the two of them have is…" 

"You're a completely awful person and I'm not sure I'll be able to manage ever sleeping with you again," Bruce chokes out. 

"Really? I was hoping once we got to the Riviera, you'd put that G-man suit back on and 'take me in for questioning,'" Tony says. "I've been told I'm an incredibly tough nut to crack." 

"Only because nobody's put the right kind of pressure on you, I bet," Bruce murmurs as he picks up his cup of tea and takes a long sip. 

"A solid hypothesis, Doctor Banner. Plan an experiment, grab some materials and we could find out." 

"I'm not going to indulge your Jack Bauer fantasies, Tony," Bruce says, flatly. He waits for a beat. "How do you feel about Milan?" 

"First, it's _Ryan_. Jack Ryan fantasies. They are different. Nerdier, if you will. Second, I'm not sure how you don't think you're the Tom Clancy type. Picture it: the charismatic physicist-physician who moonlights as a professional mercenary, kicking ass and chewing bubble gum."

"I tried that once," Bruce deadpans as he takes the glasses from his face and slowly uses the plaid shirt to wipe one of the lenses. "Didn't work, I swallowed the gum halfway through. Hulk wouldn't speak to me for a week, afterward…”

Tony sits there in dead silence, because if he starts--

“Please laugh before you break your face." 

Tony laughs until his eyes start watering, his body convulsing with it. "Well, when you have to be so hilariously self-depreciating about everything.”

“So, Milan.” 

“I don't quite know if you're aware of who I am, so I'm going to ask this nicely: do you _seriously_ think that I'm about to tell you a single negative thing about Milan?" 

Bruce looks nonplussed, "I need to go to Milan for a bit before Monaco. Make a report. I'm asking if you would like to come with me. It's about a three hour drive from here, maybe four. If you think the Aston could handle a trip through the mountains, of course." 

"Don't come here, insult my car, tell me you're whisking me away to Milan so you can call in and then insinuate you're _not_ indulging my Jack Ryan fantasies. What other Jack Ryan fantasies do you think I _have_ , Banner?" 

"Tony--" 

"That's like, the main part of any fantas--" 

Bruce leans in, sighing in Tony's ear, " Voglio scopare lì, tesoro. Saremo soli, invisibili. Sarò solo un arma nel vostro arsenale. Ti darò tutto, io appartengo a te." 

Well, that just flips all of Tony's switches at once. The thought of fucking in a proper SHIELD facility under the cover of very official business. The way Bruce is prepared for all the kinds of things that don't even occur to Tony, fitting to the jagged edges with ease. Tony envies that, the ability to hide in plain sight, even in the layers of himself. 

"Banner, you warped little _romantic_ ," Tony smirks. "Of course I'll let you kidnap me to Milan. I'm just the driver." 

"You know you'll never be 'just the driver', Tony."

"Maybe not," Tony shrugs, "but in this little metaphor, if you get to be the weapon, I'll need to be the hands on the wheel and feet on the throttle, don't you think?”

It's easy to turn and slip his fingers into Bruce's hair, hold him steady for a kiss. After, Bruce turns and lays on the couch next to him, head resting in Tony's lap. And sure, the whole thing's just this side of inappropriate, but there's nobody around so the place feels all theirs. 

It's dark by the time they leave the cafe, so they take a cab back to Paquis. Bruce is punch-drunk and loose, looks like he's glowing in the dim streetlight. He hangs his head and yawns with his whole body. 

"When do we leave? Do we have to blow this popsicle stand tonight?" 

"No," Bruce shakes his head. "Half the fun of the road there is seeing the mountains. We'll go in the morning." 

"Thank you."

"For what?" 

Tony sounds, feels small, "for offering to take me with you, this time." 

"Tony," Bruce turns, smiles. "It was a challenge, but you don’t know how much it means to me that you let me find you." 

His jaw sets and he winds fingers into Bruce's hand. "You deserve nothing less."


	6. Chapter 6

**Mont Blanc**

Bruce spent the better part of an hour with twitching fingers and a keen grasp of urgency, coaxing the car's navigation system into doing as told. While waiting, Tony walks up the street for breakfast. The fresh tabloids have a new story of repair for the _'compagnes scientifique_ ,' a sharp spread of photos of them walking down the street, cuddling in the cafe, taking it slow on the way back to the hotel. He doesn't bother reading the text. A stop for gas, and then they're off. 

And somewhere into the second hour, the talking stops, the auditory stimulation of Daft Punk slides away. The mountains surrounding them are all that’s left, the zig zag of hairpin after hairpin turning through the foothills. 

"I've never been here before," Tony says, softly. "I always take the plane." 

Bruce’s voice sounds small, far away. "I know." 

The road descends deep into the foot of the mountain, a tunnel that is long and straight and endlessly bland. And as he drives along, Tony remembers the day when everything started to change. 

It had been late in the evening when Tony sat, drinking straight from the bottle, staring at the old SI logo painted across the window, larger than life. He’d watched the unforgiving edge of the word ‘industries’, its suggestion that people are born to lay down in its path. He stared deep curve that mocked him like it was proof of a life spent without accountability. 

‘Jarvis told me you were here,’ Bruce had said softly from behind him. He’d sounded timid, gentle. Tony had retreated deeper into the chair. 

He can hear the footfalls on the cold floor, and Bruce simply walked up, took the bottle from Tony’s hand, and taken a swig for show. Bruce’s free hand shoved the stopper back in, and he’d walked to put it away. 

A glass of water pushed itself into Tony’s hand. Tony looked up at him, tried to hold back from the ‘how dare you’ that could have so easily been spoken. Even with the depression and self-depreciation, Tony knew the one thing that would pull Bruce’s deep river of anger to flood over the surface of him was yet another a belligerent argument with yet another drunken angry man.

‘Don’t do this to yourself,’ Bruce said, simply. His residency badge dangled from the corner of his pocket. 

Tony had given him free reign after he’d reluctantly moved out of the rat-hole he’d sleeping in near Coney Island. Bruce insisted that Tony take rent out of his SI researcher’s stipend, like it was some honorable request, a cling to normalcy. Tony intended to give all that money back in a holiday bonus, or maybe use it to buy the guy some new clothes. But Bruce hadn’t changed much beyond that: enigmatic stares and thrift store clothes, hair too long and too grey. 

‘You comfortable?’ Tony asked, flicking the water glass toward the badge. 

‘I’m good at being uncomfortable,’ Bruce replied as he took a seat on the floor beside the armchair. ‘You aren’t.’ 

‘Nope,’ Tony said, oozing from the chair to sit beside him, turning toward the logo once more. Bruce made a wordless noise at that, pawing the coffee table for a remote for the projector. He shut it off. The windows turn opaque again, lower Manhattan’s skyline breathtaking this late at night. A thunderstorm approached, a break in the steam of New York spring. 

‘Times like this, I miss my old place,’ Bruce sighed. 

‘The one in Coney?’ 

‘Open up my window, watch the rain. Think of all the people in the city getting caught, stuck without an umbrella or coat,’ Bruce murmurs. ‘Too high to do that, here, although the storms have gotten longer since I moved in.’ 

‘You’d want to go back to that slum?’ Tony asks. 

‘A shoebox apartment is only a slum if you’ve never stepped foot into a real one before,’ Bruce says, sagely, ‘we both know you’ve lived in worse.’ 

As the first lightning bolt struck, Tony could feel himself cut right down the middle. He’d bled, then, told Banner everything, _everything_ , Golmira and Hammer and the darkness of space and everything, _everything_ , the blood he couldn’t ever seem to wash from his hands. 

‘The man who built these things wouldn’t spend so much time on the body count. You aren’t the same, trust me,’ Bruce would insist, turn and look Tony in the eye. He leaned in, brushing his lips against Tony’s with the kiss of a kindred spirit, the chaste kiss of a brother. A blessing, a koan. 

Tony’d been around this block before, played this game. His mouth opened, his body arched, and he reached up, itching to sink needy and desperate little fingers into the curls of Bruce’s hair. Bruce tasted like expensive whiskey and Earl Grey and Tony could feel the warmth, the need for comfort slip into the places where pity had resided. 

Bruce’s hand stopped against Tony’s reactor, and the pain cut through Tony’s thoughts. 

‘Find me when you’ve finished that water,’ Bruce advises. He had risen to his feet and taken his leave. Tony didn’t look him up for days, after that. But when he finally found the courage, Bruce was warm and patient. Tony hadn’t realized how much he needed someone who’d understand, without seeking anything more than that in return. 

There’s a light in the distance, but there are too many cars around to floor it, roll the windows down and peel the sunroof back and let the engine echo in the darkness the way the reactor did the first time the two of them shared a bed. Tony behaves, suppresses the itch. 

When they're free from the mountain the sweeping curves of north Italian roads greet them, and Tony feels the car open up, subject to his every whim. In those moments, he bleeds motor oil, hands extensions of the stick shift and the wheel. In those moments, the countryside flies by, almost until it disappears. 

Bruce seems to be in a trancelike state in the other side of the car. 

"You alright?" 

"Preparing, is all," Bruce says, firmly. 

Tony nods, solemnly. He floors it anyway. 

 

 

**Via Luigi Settembrini**

Tony's hunched over a demitasse of espresso con panna when his phone chirps. 

_I'm done. Knock twice_.

It's just after noon. Tony had dropped Bruce and stashed the car on the other side of the street, gone for a walk to scope out the neighborhood while Bruce called someone or something or other. He'd been obtuse, and Tony's nowhere stupid enough to push. 

_Place nice?_ He texts back. 

_Nice enough. Not too glamorous, though._

Tony can deal with that for a few nights, he supposes. It's not like the place in Switzerland was very showy. And it's a safe house after all, so the idea of it squished into an attic is likely the best SHIELD would want to manage, fighting for a bit of solace in an intergalactic war. He finishes the espresso, picks up the bag of fruit and coffee he's amassed from the market he found on his walk and decides to turn back toward 'home'. 

He takes the elevator up to the fourth level, walks up the stairs to the attic, stands on the landing and knocks deliberately slow. The narrow, florescent green door opens a sliver. Tony slips inside.

"Hey," Bruce says, softly. 

"Hi," Tony replies. The door slides shut behind him, locked with a soft snick. The apartment's tiny, all angles and nooks, looks like a high-art foxhole instead of a good safe house for a worldwide organization that might have to house assets here. Still, the hardwood floors carry the scuffs of a thousand feet, and there are places where anonymous blood been stained into the grain. A skylight sits off to the side, light bouncing across the space. The bed looks pedestrian, but freshly made.

There's a kitchen and a couch and plenty of places to sit and plenty of air and sun. Tony opens up the little refrigerator tucked under the countertop, deposits the little green carton of strawberries and the bag of grapes. He puts the can of coffee next to the small espresso maker and the small loaf of bread and bottle of wine on the table. He can feel Bruce's eyes on his back. 

"Everything end up okay?" Tony asks. “Fury chew you out?”

"A little," Bruce nods as Tony turns around and watches him. “But everything’s fine.”

Underneath the open collared shirt, the t-shirt Bruce's wearing looks tight against his chest. Tony indulges because he simply has no other option, turning toward Bruce and hemming him in, sliding his mouth against Bruce's, tongue flicking out against the corners and that gorgeous lower lip. Bruce pushes back against him, hands sliding around Tony's waist, his whole body arching into the warmth.

Their mouths break apart, and suddenly Bruce is breathing slow and rhythmic, calm as he ever was. 

"I don't take well to being treated like spun sugar, Tony." 

A hand splays across Bruce's hip, and they sway back against the wall with a thunk. Under layers of soft cotton and denim, Tony can feel the pillar of Bruce's erection and knows the weight of it. He presses his thigh between Bruce's legs, holding a hand down against Bruce's shoulder so he's flat against the wall, pinned. And Bruce is baring his neck, so Tony's hand travels from hip to throat, palm resting against breastbone and fingers gently holding Bruce still. He can feel Bruce's Adam’s apple bob under his fingertips. 

There's a hint of venom, of atonement in the energy running through them, in each breath they draw. Tony can feel blood rushing under his fingers in the steady beat of Bruce's pulse, the ragged gasp of his throat attempting to take in air. And suddenly Bruce's hips are dragging from the wall, up the slope of Tony's thigh until he meets with Tony's erection as well, rubbing the two of them together. 

He narrows his stance and brings his hands to Tony's sides as if to hold him still and Tony can see it in Bruce's eyes that he'll never be able to let all of his control go. It's okay, Tony thinks. The more he knows of Bruce, the more he sees the facets of life Bruce has to manage at any given time. Tony doesn't think he could negotiate the burden with such grace and ease, even for a little while.

Bruce lunges forward, takes Tony's mouth once more. His hands drop to caress Tony's back as he leans against the fingers against his windpipe, the palm holding him down. He breathes rough into Tony's mouth, his whole body starving. When they part, he can see the way Bruce's pupils have blackened with desire, the need for stretch and burn and pressure apparent. He begs with his whole body for danger he can throw himself into. The crown of his head taps the wall once more. 

His voice sounds ragged, drawn thin and unrefined. " _Tony_." 

If this were anyone else, Tony would order them to put their hands against the wall and assume the position. Instead, he’s reaching out, flicking free the buttons of Bruce's Oxford, taking years off the body with the simple removal of a piece of clothing. In the shadows, Bruce looks like he could be in his early 30s, the fitted pants and tight t-shirt of a man who knows his body well, the swollen lips and dark eyes of one who wants you to know it, too. 

"This explains so much," Tony smiles. He closes his eyes and lets the fantasy cascade over him, of leather pants and a stretched too tight shirt and eyeliner and lip gloss and--.

Banner's voice is so come-hither it hurts. "Stop objectifying me, Stark." 

Tony groans. Bruce has squirmed away from the wall, walking backwards toward the corner with the bed. The sun's cutting between them now, adding and subtracting time from the curves of Banner's body as he toes his shoes off, undoes the fly on his jeans. Tony follows, watching Bruce watching him mimic the steps in this awkward dance. 

By the time he's over to the bed, Bruce has spread himself out, posed to carefully guide Tony's eyes where he wants them, on the erection in his shorts and his hands as they slowly, slowly expose the curve of scar tissue and body hair as it rides atop the skin of Bruce's stomach, his pecs, his chest. The skylight and clear angle of the sun have illuminated the bed, casting shadow on the planes of Bruce's chest, neck, jaw. The T-shirt bunches in his hand as he leans backward, bathes in the light. 

Tony sheds his jeans as he gets on the bed, reaching out curiously for the curve of a foot. Bruce watches as the touch climbs up his body. At his knee, Tony bows his head, replaces fingers with the idle tease of lips, reaching for the apex of Bruce's legs. He runs his tongue over the curve of Bruce's clothed erection, listens to the beautiful hitch of breath, telltale keens and moans. Up to the stomach, now, the breastbone, collarbone, neck, jaw, mouth. Bruce is far gone by the time Tony gets there, utterly devastated from the time Tony has taken. 

"You've underestimated me, too," Tony whispers against Bruce's lips, licking gently into Bruce's mouth, "haven't you?" 

Bruce doesn't beg as Tony reaches into his underwear, grabs at that cock for a fleeting moment, nearly ripping the fabric away as he tugs the cloth from Banner’s hips. Tony leans down, fits Bruce into his mouth and contracts his throat. Bruce groans, tries not to sound like he's already flying apart but Tony's already one step ahead, letting Bruce fall from his mouth and placing fingers at all the right spots to hold Bruce back. He does, after all, have work to do. 

Tony samples the taste of Bruce's skin in territories he's never even seen before. He runs the flat of his tongue against Bruce's entrance to hear the sound of surprise and surrender Bruce makes. He looks up at Bruce watching him and it feels like the first time their gazes have really locked on each other since Amsterdam. Bruce's eyes are layered with gray and green and brown along the blown rim, and he reaches out for Tony with a large hand misted over with sweat. Tony lets the connection happen. 

He sits up, back on his knees and doesn't even know how his mouth bends around the words. "Didn't you promise you'd finger yourself open for me?" 

Bruce chuckles and stretches with his whole body to snatch the bottle of lube from the nightstand. "You remember that." 

"I wouldn't forget something like that."

Bruce stays true to his word, wet fingers taking forever plying tight muscle open. Tony listens to his mumbles and gasps, the way his breath hitches as he leans back and slides his fingers inside. He's breathing rough, watching Tony watch him. 

He brings himself to the edge with the kind of methodical touch that's so utilitarian it hurts until he's keening, leaning forward and sinking teeth into his lip. Banner's voice sounds fond as three fingers sink in to the last knuckle, "will you come fuck me?" 

Tony shrugs away from his boxer briefs. Bruce smirks as he lays out in the bed again, fingers sliding free and reaching toward the t-shirt, wiping themselves clean. Tony takes the lube, warms some in his hand and watches Bruce watching him stroke himself once, twice. 

"Are we taking it slow?" 

"For a little while," Bruce replies, "but I think you'll figure it out soon enough." 

Tony does, somewhere in the long slide into Bruce's body. When he bottoms out, he can feel every part of Bruce wrapping around him: hands wrapping around wrists, pulling them up above their heads, legs bending slightly at the knee so Bruce's feet can lie against the undersides of Tony's. The position is weird: There's no movement anywhere and all he can feel is Bruce clenching, arching. 

He looks up, watches as Bruce reacts to the pressure. 

"Fuck," he groans. "You're bigger than I imagined.” 

"Relax," Tony replies, looking him in the eye. "Give it time." 

Tony leans downward, slides his tongue against Bruce's worried lower bottom lip. It’s tempting to really take control, force the issue but Bruce hasn't had this in god knows how long, and it seems as if he’s totally abandoned all his principles to get it. Somewhere in the part of his mind that's not completely hazed-out by how good Bruce’s body feels stretched out and intertwined with his, Tony realizes Bruce trusts him. Respecting that trust is likely important. Going slow enough to avoid turning his partner into a rage monster is also likely important. Tony doesn't feel like having to patch up a safe house roof because the sex was too good. 

The clench of muscles down and around Tony rip him from his thoughts, and this time he flexes muscles back, cock pushing against that one place where the pressure is driving Bruce crazy. Bruce closes his eyes and makes the most gorgeous noise, totally uninhibited and unprovoked as the two of them play this game, back and forth. Bruce's breath speeds up, faster, faster, breaking over a whine and Tony pushes forward even deeper, gets that last little bit in so he can stretch a little more, reach down for Bruce's mouth. Bruce breaks away and tips his head back, baring his neck as he locks down around Tony tight. 

"You're already coming? Before I even get _started_ with you?" Tony says like it's some kind of faux pas. It's fucking hot, is what it is. "Rude, don't you think?"

He doesn't give Bruce the chance to answer, just slides free and thrusts back in deep. Bruce snarls and bucks while Tony's hands loop around his wrists to hold him down. Tony's on solid footing, now, as he leans downward and uses the leverage of the bed, of Bruce's body to set his hips moving like water, slow and considerate of Bruce's tightness while still attempting to angle up into his body with every stroke. 

Tony looks down for a second, makes sure that Bruce's legs are in a position around his waist where they can stay. Now that he's seen the way Bruce wills himself open and spreads out for him, he's got every intention to string this out, get Bruce shaking and screaming his name, asking to stop or maybe asking for more. Bruce is whimpering on every stroke, wrists straining as hands turn in Tony's grip and gather fistfuls of sheets. 

"Teach me some manners, Anthony," Bruce's voice sighs soft and a little meek but ravenous and it goes straight to Tony's cock, groaning and rolling and using the momentum of his whole body. Bruce says his name like he's fucking the man instead of the empire, bends his tongue around it like he'll build temples in Tony's honor, beg for the state of rapture Tony’s attention has put him into. 

" _Fuck_ ," Tony hisses, leaning against Bruce's forehead, all sea-sawing breath and groaning, spiraling ecstasy. He staggers his strokes, rolling deep once and then shallow just to hear Bruce's breath hitch, the way he tries turning away, biting his lip to keep from letting Tony know this, see this. 

That just won’t do.

He uses a hand to nudge Banner's face over again, shoves his mouth against the one heaving so desperately for air. Bruce kisses him like worship, like servitude, like the only thing that's keeping him alive is the way Tony fills every place inside him all at once when they're locked together at the hips. 

So he makes Banner work for it, hips backing away every time he feels Bruce's body clenching around him. He's left Bruce straining at the edge of orgasm a handful of times when he backs away a bit. 

“He…he wants to touch me, Tony,” Bruce says, staring up with wide eyes. “Let…let me tell him he can.” 

“Is… he asking permission from me?” Tony asks. 

Bruce’s eyes squeeze shut as he grits his teeth and nods, “he says it’s important.” 

Well, that’s complicated. Bruce is shaking, arching, straining under Tony’s hands, “do you trust him?”

“I…I,” Bruce’s eyes close, and he tries hiding himself again. Tony jackknives his hips in deep enough where Bruce’s eyes fly open, deep brown and lost. “ _Yes._ ” 

“Then I can trust him too,” Tony breathes. “Don’t go under, okay? Stay with me.” 

Banner nods and Tony watches as a long line of Chartreuse emerges up Bruce's breast bone, his collar, his neck, his chin, his jaw. Tony stills as Banner squirms, gurgling out a whimper so it doesn't turn into a scream. It’s incredible, a long green trail denoting where Hulk is touching from the inside. Panic races through Tony as quickly as any arousal could. 

He watches Bruce's eyes slide shut as another long line of green emerges from tan skin, the touch sweeping from one shoulder to the other. And strangely enough, he's not transforming, not stretching or swelling the way Tony has seen so many times before. He doesn't know what to think. 

"It's okay, I'm okay. I promise, Tony," Bruce’s voice quivers with pleasure as his back arches even deeper and his legs lift from their places next to Tony's. "It's okay, keep going, I'm fine I _swear_." 

And maybe this explains a lot, Tony thinks as he curls inward, holds onto Bruce's arms at the exposed inner elbows, feels a heart beat in double-triple time as he snaps back in, grits his teeth and moans. He watches as the green crawls all over, skittering like…like a lover’s teasing, fond caress. Bruce looks like he can't handle the stimulation but loves every single minute nonetheless, withering under the pressure and--

"What the hell, Banner?" Tony asks through gritted teeth, the connection between them so raw it even hurts to retreat inside his own head for a minute or two. 

"You're not even trying," Bruce accuses, even though there's no acid in his words, and his voice makes the goading sound weak.

Tony doesn't respond to that kind of defamation of character kindly. He sits back, takes his hands from Bruce's arms and digs his nails into Bruce's hips, pulling Bruce's lower half onto his lap. He speeds the pace of his strokes, not quite a full assault but certainly breaking from the slow, mechanically perfect motion that Tony had been using to ply him into a stupor. He shoves one of Banner's legs aside, allowing him just the right kind of angle to feel more, have the thing he's demanding. He marvels at the strength, how Bruce is pushing back and trying so hard to suppress the fight inside him. 

Bruce is losing, though. He’s screaming, now, suffocating at the green caressing his throat. Fear cuts through Tony, but he still pushes in, still follows Bruce's lead and watches as the green recedes until there's a swath of it down by Tony's hands, crawling achingly slow, slower, slower than that down into the V of Banner's torso, the long line of his crotch and the curve of his erection. 

Tony watches as Bruce ejaculates. He's already screamed himself hoarse and fucked himself raw, shaking down to the core and ripping the sheets with his grip. On anyone else, on any other lover Tony has ever taken, such an action would look grotesque. It would look like an act, Tony thinks. Bruce looks transcendental as his mouth opens in a silent scream of rapture and his whole body wriggles and he comes like someone’s made an attempt to wring the very life from him. 

He watches as Bruce's breathing evens out, the lines in his face softening. Bruce's body rolls up into Tony's lap with unnerving grace and power in his core, depositing his head onto Tony's shoulder. Bruce's hands cling to Tony's back, and his body fucks itself almost without Bruce's permission. And it's so hot, he looks fantastic when he's this destroyed, yearning for more. 

"Bruce," Tony gasps. "Bruce, please. Look at me." 

Bruce's head slides from Tony's shoulder and he sits up straight. He looks down at Tony with stormy eyes, shifting back and forth between deep brown and glowing emerald. His body is streaking with green as he unrolls his hands and fits Tony's jaw between his palms. Tony can feel it in his touch, the bliss, how it crackles from Bruce's fingertips. 

Tony doesn't even catch the words that fall out of his mouth until they're already gone. "You…you alright, big guy?" 

"Banner want harder," Bruce's mouth grits out. His head leans to the side, worried red mouth sparkling in the sun. "Tin man want harder? Tin Man want come?" 

"Yeah," Tony nods. "Yeah, tin man want. Banner okay with you using him like this?" 

"Hulk not use Banner," Bruce's head shakes in a disjointed motion. "Hulk help Banner make Tin Man come." 

"That's generous of you," Tony jokes, grimacing. He's done weirder things with people who aren't affected by Gamma, but that doesn’t make this any less weird. 

Bruce's hands fix onto Tony's shoulders like he's shaking him out of his own head and he leans in, growling. "Banner want _harder_." 

"Okay, I got your point, Pistachio." Tony holds Banner's hips down and flips them over with a bounce as he goes to work. He jackknives in deep and can feel Bruce closing in around him, can hear the bedsprings creaking satisfyingly under the stress. And Tony's all in control here, has Bruce dangling at the end of a short leash, all of the monster and the savage in him at Tony’s whim, his fingertips.

"C'mon, Stark," Bruce's eyes are closed but the smile slashed across his face is all Banner. " _Use_ me." 

Tony puts his head down and gives it all he has, until his muscles are cramping and there's too much friction everywhere and Bruce is scrambling, arching up against him like he wants to hold off another go-round but doesn't have the strength. He trembles and his eyes squeeze shut and Tony knows it's not weak to follow him clear off the edge, coming so hard he barely even registers that Bruce's eyes are flying open and he gets to watch as they roll back in his head. 

In the end, Bruce looks gorgeously, terribly possessed as his whole body tears through what has to be a maddening orgasm, dry and strong and sharp. 

Tony catches his breath, pulls away. Even though they're upside down on the bed, Bruce's face turns to burrow into the comforter like it's a pillow. Tony's fingers gently prod, checking to make sure he wasn't too rough. The skin is swollen-hot but still lubricated, and Tony's finger slides inside with little effort, Bruce's body swallowing it deep as he cries out from overstimulation. Tony can feel the wetness of his own ejaculate just out of reach. 

“No,” Bruce damn near reads his mind, "you gave me that, Tony. Don't you dare think I'll let you take it back." 

"So no on the felching, then?" 

Bruce yawns like a cartoon character. Tony retreats, "Felching is firmly off the list of things I can suspend medical knowledge for. Ass to mouth is on that list too, in case you think you'll be able to con me into that one. I'm just gonna…" 

He deflates into the bed with a snore. 

Tony knows he should be tired, but he's sort of buzzing with energy and going over what just happened in his head and…

"Banner sleep," Bruce's mouth moves. His voice is hoarse, gruff and full of bass, but soft like he doesn't want to wake anyone up. His eyes open, radioactive emerald staring up at Tony. "Hulk not sleep. Tin Man sleep?" 

Tony lays on his stomach, turns to look. Bruce is gorgeous and naked and there isn't a single stretched out bone or green speck on his body. Back to this being incredibly weird, then.

"No, Hulk, I'm not asleep," Tony sighs. "How are you doing that? Are you comfortable like that?"

"Okay for talk," Bruce looks down at his own body, stretches and rolls like you would when trying on a new suit, a pair of pants to see if they'll fit. Bruce turns, nods. "Not good for smash…most kind of smash." 

"What do you mean?" 

"Okay for smash Tin Man." 

"You've heard it used that way too!" Tony grins. 

Bruce's face looks at him like it should be obvious. Man, Hulk's a diva. He nods. "Hulk hear Banner lab friends." 

"They all want to sleep with him, don't they?" Tony asks. Banner's head nods up and down. 

"Lab friends talk like Banner meat. Banner person. Banner not property.” 

“You know what you want. Good for you,” Tony nods. 

“Banner smash Tin Man. Smash good for Banner. Smash make Banner happy. Banner happy, Hulk happy,” Bruce says with an alarming amount of certainty. “Smash okay for tin man?" 

_Was it good for you?_ Tony hears in the back of his head and damn near chokes on his attempt not to laugh. His breath hitches, and he tries not to smile too wide. "Yeah. Smash real good for tin man. I don't have any cigarettes, but I have some food. You want a post-smash snack?" 

"Hulk could eat." 

"Good," Tony nods, standing up. It's just the two--no, three, three- of them, and after the turns this day have taken, it's not like Tony's very concerned about if there are cameras or sensors in this place. Fuck pants. He walks over to the kitchen and pulls out two glasses and a plate. "I have fruit and bread. Bruce told me we were only staying a day." 

"Banner like fruit, Hulk like bread," Bruce calls. Tony frowns at that. 

"Give the man what he wants, I guess," he shrugs. He looks for a knife and finds a bottle of nutella, unscrews the cap and finds it unopened.

Small. Miracles.


	7. Chapter 7

**Via Privata Giovanni Durando**

“Tony, why did I wake up with a spoonful of nutella in my mouth?” Bruce asks, brows furrowed underneath sensible glasses. 

In a fit of escaping laughter, Tony spits wine into his napkin and leans down onto the faux marble ledge, gasping for air after a fretful giggling swallow. Bruce puts his glass down onto the rooftop bar and reaches to pat Tony on the back.

“Where was this comedic timing, like, a month ago?” Tony asks, sputtering. 

“I used to have a really good sense of it, but the big guy got most of my humor in the divorce, really,” Bruce sighs. 

“You seem less weary of him than you were in New York,” Tony points out. “What happened?” 

“You know that one friend you have where every time you hang out you kind of worry they’re going to get you into a lot of trouble?” Bruce asks. 

“I usually am that one friend, honestly.” 

“Long story short, he’s been having adventures where he can get into more trouble than even he was expecting,” Bruce says. “He’s happy, I think. Happier than I’ve known him to be, to say the least. Maybe it’s just finally having something that makes sense for us, he can be him, and the place between us gets a little room to breathe, too. He still gets angry when stupid shit happens, but he’s been less incoherent about that anger, it seems.” 

“Well, gotta give it to Fury, he knows how to keep his assets in line.” 

“Fury’s not a school marm, you know,” Bruce points out. “Big guy’s the type where as long as the pressure’s down he’s pretty calm. He did stay calm, right? Didn’t try going all…” 

“Oh no, totally copasetic. And sassier than I thought he’d be. Granted, it was a bit weird, but I got over the fact that he wasn’t big or green or angry. And that he was using your mouth. And that he was sort of talking dirty to me. And that—“ 

Bruce’s deep huff of a sigh is a bit scary, and Tony sort of hopes the wait staff will hold off on bringing them menus until Bruce stops looking like he’ll cry over one. “I should have told you that could’ve happened. I’m sorry.”

“It happens? You mean it wasn’t just an accident?” 

“It’s kind of complicated.”

“I’m just trying to figure out what the hell happened,” Tony says. 

“There are times when he’s really close to the surface, and we talked about it and reached an agreement,” Bruce shrugs, hunched over and looking at the wine glass in his hand. 

“What agreement?” 

Bruce’s eyes flit upward as his cheeks turn red. “He could help me when I took matters into my own hands, so to speak.” 

Tony can see the advantages to that. “So he’d behave and you wouldn’t have to spend so much time keeping reign on him when you were trying to enjoy yourself. Nice work-life balance, there.” 

“I appreciate the compliment.” Bruce deadpans. “Since you came along, there hasn’t been much of a need to pursue that arrangement. He pokes through sometimes but he’s comfortable, and he’s never been particularly fond of watching the two of us together, thinks it’s unfair to you. But I guess he’s becoming more talkative around you now.” 

“Way to make your life sound like an awkwardly adorable rom-com, there. I’m glad he hasn’t given me the shovel talk, with that kind of attitude,” Tony shrugs. 

“What shovel talk?” Bruce asks. “The ‘You break his heart I’ll kill you’ shovel talk?” 

“Yeah,” Tony nods. He watches as Bruce’s face goes a little lax and he tilts one ear up for a second, before reaching for his glass again. 

“He says that talk is outdated and paternalistic,” Bruce says. “Also, that he thought it was obvious.” 

“Paternalistic?” Bruce shrugs. Tony runs a hand through his hair and sighs, “Well, it is now. Shit changes quick around you, eh? What happened today?”

“I thought you’d have missed my careful avoidance of that,” Bruce smiles, shyly. “Honestly, I wanted both of you, there. So I asked both of you. I asked him to behave, to let me do the work. And I asked you to help me stop thinking about the work. Then he got the picture and asked if I wanted you two to gang up on me. And when I said yes, he asked me to ask you because... yeah.” 

“This is the first time you’ve blushed in weeks, Banner,” Tony prods. “You can’t even look at me.” 

“I knew it wouldn’t work any other way,” Bruce says over his wine glass. 

“So all the breathing and the stretching and the…” 

“No, that was for you just as much as it was for him,” Bruce says as he lifts the wine glass to his mouth, a forcefully awkward movement. “He just felt it differently.” 

“So which one of you did I fuck? Which one of you have I _been_ fucking?” Tony asks. 

“Me, both counts,” Bruce smiles. “Sometimes he gets close to the surface, and I can feel it in my hips or my fingers. I just have to hold myself back from breaking you, and that’s easy. He knows my pleasure’s something he’ll feel, too. He can process that, he knows there isn’t any reason to get angry. Even when you goad me.”

“Can I goad him? Is that on the table?” Tony asks. “Can I ask him to hold your hands behind your back or…” 

“I mean, I wouldn’t,” Bruce says. “I’ve been working through the list of all potential sexual triggers and so far nothing really serious has happened, but my methodology is dependent upon--.”

“It’s vacation, remember?” Tony handwaves the scientific method talk away, “write me an abstract when we get back to Manhattan. Don’t want to muddy my waters on conceiving hypothetical solutions by allowing me into the observation process.” 

Bruce snorts, shakes his head as he takes another drink of wine. “He’s been pretty playful lately, and more okay with the things we do than I thought he’d be. It’s just that he usually stays out of my mouth. Usually.” 

“And this time around?” Tony asks. 

“He told me I was holding myself back. I wouldn’t ask for what I wanted. So he asked if it was okay and then told me to get out of the way and let him help,” he shrugs. 

“Eloquent,” Tony murmurs. 

“We’re working on it. You should get his opinion on the place of consent in a globalized, surveillance-based fascist society.” Bruce says as if he’s proud of a child. Tony always thought it’d be awesome if the Hulk were secretly a total activist. “He’s quite the scholar. He constantly wants to read stuff that I’ve never had an impulse to even touch. Last time we had a post-smash nap, he dreamed about having tea with Rachel Maddow.” 

Tony spits wine into his soaked napkin again, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I just, seriously?” 

“She kind of reminds us both of Betty in college.” 

“The whole nerdy lesbian with glasses, a knack for Gin Rickeys and a hatred of the military industrial complex thing really work for you, Banner?” 

“Betty was pretty straight,” Bruce shrugs, “but she kinda had the same haircut and loved old man drinks.” 

“She sounds like a real pistol. Sorry Thunderbolt got in the way,” Tony nods. 

“A lot more than Thunderbolt got in the way, there,” Bruce says, allowing a moment of silence for a relationship Tony knows probably was fantastic. Bruce’s mouth twitches wistfully. “I’m sure she found a man with the chiseled jawline and six pack of her dreams, eventually.” 

“Well, don’t you just sound well adjusted,” Tony says, evenly.

“Out of all the things I have to be not so well adjusted about, Betty is not one of them. I could give you a list of things I’m not well adjusted over, if you want.” Bruce shrugs and ticks his worries off with his fingers. “My childhood. The number of funerals I attended while in puberty. Radiation biochemistry as an academic field of research. The carbon half-life of my skeletal structure. Klingons. Thor’s Pop Tart consumption. Large spiders. The ethics of inciting anarchic action. Hemdall watching us have sex from the Bifrost. The things Pepper told me about seasons one through three of So You Think You Can…” 

“This list sounds dangerously close to ‘death and Klingons.’” Tony deadpans. “Bummer, though. I would’ve tried to ask Hulk for his thoughts on progressivism as a movement this afternoon if I would have known there was a chance he’d be able to use you for more than just smashing.” 

“He sees everything as either smashing, something that will help him get back to smashing or a distraction from smashing, in the end. He only would have answered if he thought theorizing you to death would have meant round…how many did we go?” 

“I lost count, you stud. Just a bag o’tricks, aren’t ya?” Tony grins. “Never would've thunk it, myself.” 

“Look, I can’t take back the decision to keep quiet, but I did want it, I let him ask for it, and I told you I was okay when you started freaking out.” 

“I know, I know,” Tony says, darkly. “Christ, Banner, I just haven’t had an existential crisis that related to an orgasm since I was twelve.”

“You didn’t do anything that I didn’t want. That he didn’t know I wanted, and if you would have tried, he would have protected me,” Bruce says, gently. “And I know I should have told you, I should have told you everything. It felt like I couldn’t get out of my own way, I guess. I didn’t know it would be hard to put everything aside, I felt like I couldn’t not hold things back. It was scary, honestly. I couldn’t get the words out, I couldn’t beg for more.” 

“But you wanted to?” Tony asks. 

“More than anything in the world,” Bruce replies. He looks out over the city, the brilliant sun blazing low in the afternoon sky on terra cotta rooftops spiraling out in all directions. “I wanted it to last for the rest of the day. You kinda wore me out.”

“Wait, wait, excuse me. I know I was trying to coax you into having a serious conversation about the nature of informed consent and if it can really truly exist between the two of us but…” Tony pauses.

“It can,” Bruce nods. “Hulk’s really big on asking, now that he knows what that means and how to deal with ‘no.’ He knows how much you mean to me. He knows it well enough to know you wearing me out--” 

Tony holds up a hand, “I got my answer, I just want to know how much would I have to barter to get that statement in writing?” 

Bruce’s laughter is stunning and full of surprise. “If you write it down right now and I can read your handwriting, I’ll sign it. But you have to let me drive the Aston to Monaco. That car’s been purring too hard, and I want a crack at it.” 

“Damn, you drive a hard bargain, Banner,” Tony groans. 

“It’s a survival skill,” the smile that graces his face is all beatific. “Keys, Stark.” 

Tony snatches at Bruce’s cocktail napkin, pulls out a pen. Bruce takes the pen, and holds out his free hand for the key. Tony takes it from his pocket, gently, and leers over at Bruce’s open palm. He brandishes it like an extended finger wagging in Bruce’s direction. “You don’t have to tell me everything. I never wanted you to tell me everything. I know you want be as many things as you can, but you’re going to have to learn to speak up when you know the game’s going to change. And if you wreck my car because you can’t handle the ‘Italian Straddle,’ I am seriously going to ‘Stark smash’ your face in.”

Bruce looks on at the lecture and bites back his laughter. He nods, a deep ceremonial bowing of his head. “Noted.”

“She’s my baby,” Tony says like he’s choking up, “take good care of her.” 

“She’ll get to Monaco in one piece,” Bruce notes as he stares at the little gimmicky remote, and then flicks it down into his pants pocket. “I, Robert Banner, am willing to admit under signed affidavit that--”

“Goddamn, Banner, you sure you haven’t been hiding a law degree under that Zen-like calm?” 

Bruce finishes writing the statement, signs and dates the napkin, pushing it over to Tony’s side of the counter. “There. Put that in your pocket before the bartender comes along and pawns it to the Daily Mail.” 

“I can see the scandal now.” 

“The road’s mostly tunnels through the Italian countryside, so I think leaving a little before sunrise will be best. Extra decadence of sleeping through the afternoon on the Riviera?” 

“You know,” Tony replies, tucking the napkin away in his wallet, “for a man that’s incredibly sensitive to looking kept, you sure would make a fantastic personal assistant-cum-cabana boy.” 

“And that’s supposed to mean a lot?” Bruce asks. 

“Do you seriously think Hemdall watches us having sex from the Bifrost?” Tony asks. 

“It’s theoretically in the realm of possibility,” Bruce shrugs. 

The waitress finally deposits a menu between the two of them, leaning over to top off Bruce’s glass and switch out Tony’s soaked napkin, holding the drenched one with the cap of her pen. 

“That’s kinda hot,” Tony remarks. 

“I can’t tell if you’re talking about our server or the black warrior-god in the sky watching us make it happen,” Bruce points out. Tony actually chokes on his wine this time. The waitress gives him a sorrowful thwack on the back of the head as she passes. 

Tony makes sure her tip is embarrassingly large. 

 

 

**Carazzo**

He wakes up to an empty bed again. 

He checks his wrists, his hands, the reactor. 

He slides out of bed, takes a piss, walks out to find a glass for water. He looks around. Bruce’s bag is still on the chair in the corner. He leans over and finds the jar of nutella and the spoon he’d washed from yesterday afternoon. No time like the present for a snack.

Then he sees it, the glint of something on the deck. 

A knife- no, two- glinting in the dim light as the sky slowly brightens. 

Bruce is moving silently, but Tony knows what the regimented, stylized poses and the liquid, swift transitions stand for. 

_Katas_. 

Tony’s eyes adjust and he can see the precision, the placement of feet and bend of knees, the rolling angles of hands and ribs. And Tony can imagine this man, this version of Bruce charging into his opponents, using every body part he can to his advantage as he obliterates the competition. He knows it’s just the tip of the iceberg, imagines Bruce can throw himself around in the same way the Hulk can, all momentum and manipulation of gravity and the footwork of someone who’s spent years perfecting a technique. 

This makes sense, fills in a portion of a routine Tony always knew existed but never saw. For a moment, he wonders about how Bruce has kept this up during his time spent in such close quarters, if he specifically slips out of bed while Tony’s in a deep sleep, practices until the wheels are about to fall off, showers and slips into bed all without a single nudge. Tony looks on with a little bit of awe as he thinks of that, Bruce on the boat, on the deck. 

Bruce’s practice comes to a close and he flicks the knives back into the back of his pants. Quietly, he pushes the door so he can slide just inside. 

Bruce walks into the middle of the safe house, stands up straight. His back is covered in sweat, barely healed scars and the bruises Tony had given him low on his hips yesterday afternoon. He speaks as if he does not know where Tony is in the apartment, even though it’s obvious that Bruce knows exactly what’s going on around him at all times. 

“Will a half hour be long enough to pick your jaw up from the floor?” 

“You better make it forty-five minutes to be sure,” Tony replies. “You have to figure in time for me to jack off, you know.” 

Bruce’s laugh echoes as he walks into the bathroom. He does not shut the door, just turns on the shower and slides off his pants, walking into the stall and sliding his palms flat against the wall, ducking his head under the spray. 

The spoon clatters as Tony throws it into the sink again. He walks across the space, into the bathroom. He slides in behind Bruce, slowly raises his hands to curl around the curve of Bruce’s stomach and trace up toward his chest. He cants his hips back because this isn’t about that, and leans his head down on Bruce’s shoulder.

“What do you think of me,” Bruce breathes out. He’s gone through this rodeo before, Tony can see it in every line of his body, “now that you know?” 

“That you’re a total badass and a damn good liar, and a puzzle with too many extra pieces. Like your childhood, and Klingons.” Tony jokes. “And I’m probably going to look back on this and think I was a fool. But that doesn’t really bother me. I am a fool, sometimes. Those pieces fit somewhere.”

He brings his mouth down against Bruce’s skin, tastes water and salt. He feels blood pumping just under the surface. They stay like that for a long time. 

Bruce’s voice is soft, almost wounded. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t give you, if you asked.” 

“Damn, McAdams. That’s some heavy shit,” Tony jokes. “I want to make sure you have every single thing you need to be whatever you have to be.” 

“You mean spoil me rotten?” Bruce asks. 

“Fancy how that coincidence works,” Tony replies. A hand reaches up toward Bruce’s, and Tony presses his palm toward the range of Bruce’s knuckles and the last little bit of understanding clicks into place. It feels like touching a livewire. It feels like reading an encyclopedia for the first time. 

“Yeah,” Bruce says. “Fancy that.” 

He reaches for the bracelet on Bruce’s free wrist, and pulls it away. The little flashing heart monitor slowly fades to black, jettisoning down toward the drain. 

Tony shrugs his free, too. They’re not so important, anymore. 

 

 

**Autostrada Milano-Genova**

“Mmm.” 

“Mmm-hmm.” 

“Oh my god, oh fuck.”

“Damn, If I would have known I wouldn’t’ve—“ 

“Probably not. I know you.” 

“Wouldn’t go that far. Probably get this a lot, ‘round here.” 

“ _Oh_.” 

“Yeah.” 

“How did you—“ 

“That’s what happens when you doubt me.” 

“Damn, Banner. Goddamn.” 

“Mmmhmm.” 

“I want more, that was awesome.”

“More? Tony I don’t know if—“ 

“Shut it, I want round two.” 

“Getting stuffed this early in the morning is probably not--.”

“Banner. Think about it. How it felt in your--” 

“Okay, okay. Round two.” Bruce stands up with the little faux porcelain plate and makes off toward the bar to get what Tony thinks will still be the greatest, most life defining, state of the art sandwich Tony’s ever had the chance to put in his mouth. “You need more espresso?” 

“Espresso this good?” Tony asks back. “You don’t even _know_.” 

Bruce just turns and walks away. Tony orients his body toward the window, watching the interstate traffic blithely slide by. He thinks about this ridiculous sabbatical, how it’s changed how he looks at the world without…changing the world. And Bruce’s passion for helping people, for getting lost in the crowd now seems to make sense: it’s almost addictive. Not the genuine discomfort of day to day living when you’re not stupid rich, but watching the way people act as they go about their lives, and following course, doing the same. He marvels at how easy it is to slip into the crowd when he’s not Tony Stark, the legend. Truth is, he stopped looking for Stark Phones and StarkPadds and all those other things he’d belched out onto the market about two days after Bruce left in that bed. Since then, he’s dreamed up all sorts of new opportunities and designs. His head hasn’t stopped, even if his heart needed the pause.

There’ll be a lot to review, later. A lot of things that will need JARVIS’ touch, Pepper’s help, Rhodey’s know-how and Steve’s little chorus of hems and haws. He’ll have to patch things up with Fury and send a gift basket to his private accountant. There will be work to do, after this sabbatical, and Tony can’t remember a time where he felt more at peace with that. 

He feels like the luckiest man in the room.

Bruce comes back and sits down beside him with fresh coffee and another sandwich for them to split. When he sits down, Tony leans over to kiss him. 

He doesn’t even care if it makes him look fifteen.


	8. Chapter 8

**A8**

Bruce gasps as they emerge from the tunnel and Monaco reveals itself. They can see the whole country from here, sprawled out and built into the mountain, languishing like it’s laying out in the sun to work on a tan. 

“‘I’ve seen the world. I’m really not impressed anymore,’” Tony quotes.

“The last time I was impressed, I was in a speedboat held together by superglue trying to sneak into a pirate cove,” Bruce points out. “You ever seen a floating forbidden city, Tony? It’s really hard to top.” 

“Monaco’s like that, sometimes,” Tony says, pointing a finger toward the off ramp. “Turn up here.” 

Signal, switch lanes, a long curve that kisses the mountain before it swoops off in the other direction under the AutoRoute. A tight hairpin and then they’re descending the hill, sliding past the border.

“It’s just that the pirates are in suits?” Bruce asks. 

“They’re also much better liars.” 

 

 

 

**Quai Jean-Charles Rey**

There is a genuinely appalling spread of tea satchels and chocolates on the kitchen table when they arrive, along with a note. 

“Nous avons envoyé ce cadeau avec l'espérance sincère que nos copains scientifique préférés peuvent rendre visite pendant votre séjour à Monaco,” Tony reads before he shakes his head and shrugs, “Well, I suppose I saw that coming. Pepper loves this place and nearly cleaned them out the last time we were here.” 

Bruce walks across the kitchen, reaching for the kettle to fill it with water. “But are they asking us to stop in to pay them or to make sure they show up in the papers?” 

“You should get used to asking that question a lot, Banner.” Tony says as he opens a box of truffles and takes a bite. The chocolate is tart and spicy but smooth and amazing. “Sad thing is we can’t even take most of this back to the states because the FDA hates fun.” 

“They make it with things the FDA hasn’t approved?” Bruce asks as he turns the kettle on and walks over to look through the wooden tea box. 

“Lots of things,” Tony says, feeling every bit like the hedonist he is. He walks up to Bruce, slips a piece into his mouth. And that mouth, that lush, gorgeous mouth closes around the chocolate and Tony’s fingers, purring as the chocolate melts along his tongue. Bruce looks up at him, chewing thoughtfully as Tony’s fingers drop free from his mouth. 

“Incredible,” Bruce says. “I can see why Pepper enjoys it so much.” 

Tony closes the box of truffles and walks away as Bruce makes himself a cup of tea. 

The concierge has left the bedroom’s balcony door cracked a bit, and the room smells like sea. Tony breathes deep as he travels down the long, ropey hallway to the bedroom, his bedroom, small and plush and formal, cool lines in gunmetal and mahogany. 

Tony hasn’t been here in so long. 

“There is so much marble in here,” Bruce points out, watching broken-in boat shoes travel along a well-polished floor. “I’m going to scuff something if I just look at it wrong.” 

“There’s not much to look at,” Tony points out. “The other bedroom on the other side of the condo’s usually where Rhodey or Pepper sleep. Or Rhodey and Pepper, that happened a few times. Good to have people around who know spooning doesn’t always lead to forking.” 

“Usually call those ‘adults’, Tony. And what about everybody else in the Stark entourage, when it descends upon Monte Carlo?” Bruce asks. 

“People usually keep quiet when they hear a free room at the Hotel De Paris is involved,” Tony smiles, wanly. “You’re on a very short list of people who know this place exists: Potts, Rhod, the remodelers. Didn’t even tell Obie, back when he would have cared.” 

“Why here?” Bruce calls from the bathroom. “You seriously picked the most ridiculous tub to put in here for kicks, didn’t you?” 

“Large artificial basins of water still freak me out,” Tony admits.

“The cave?” 

Tony nods. “The cave. Bathtime’s a solo activity around here, sorry.” 

“Don’t apologize,” Bruce says, as his mouth bends effortlessly into a tired smile and then a yawn as he emerges and slides the door shut behind him. “I thought you’d have found something near the casino.” 

“Rhodey and Pepper aren’t big gamblers, and this place was the quietest out of all the ones we saw,” Tony shrugs. “Bought it for me and my friends to have fun, not really to be seen, y’know?” 

“So you built your super secret tree house in one of the most obvious places in the world?” 

“I would have preferred Kennebunkport, but every time we went to case out the joint Rhodey got seasick. Also, it’d probably looked like a conflict of interest to have my secret lair of Marble Solitude in a place where Presidents make like it’s the Hamptons,” Tony might have been a lot of things before Afghanistan, but he was rarely his own lobbyist. “Decided on this place after I took them to the world’s best steak joint down the road. Speaking of which, I called ahead and put a table on reserve for later tonight.” 

“I’m not a big stea—“ 

“Shut it, sugar baby. I told you there’d be spoiling once we got here,” Tony says. “Now come and take a nap with me.” 

Tony doesn’t even think, just sheds his shirt and takes off his shoes. He throws himself down upon the bed, and sinks into the sheets. Bruce puts down his mug of tea, taking off his glasses and unbuttoning his shirt, toeing his shoes off as he gets into bed with Tony. 

“Oh my god,” He groans, “Tony, this mattress.” 

“Could stay forever,” Tony points out, turning away from the sun. Bruce’s hand lays gently against Tony’s stomach, splayed flat. “’S paradise.” 

“Never really been in this kind of paradise before,” Bruce says as he rolls over, splays out on his stomach. The span of his back looks gorgeous, and Tony runs a hand over the curve of his spine. Bruce purrs and stretches under the touch, and Tony sees the way his eyes are slowly changing under heavy lids. Tony feels the pull of arousal in his chest, his stomach but he pushes the feeling away. It can wait. 

“If you want to see the casino, we could commission a ride over there from the restaurant,” Tony yawns. 

“Maybe,” Bruce says, and he sounds half asleep already.

 

 

**Place du Casino**

“Am I opening up the Stark Industries coiffeurs for your bidding pleasure, tonight?” Tony asks as they walk up the grandiose stairs to the entrance. They bypass a group of tourists, IPhones poised at the ready to capture a picture of a celebrity on their way to part with an embarrassing amount of money. He gave up wondering about that lot right after the first time he passed through the casino doors, fresh-faced and finally able to drink legally. 

“I appreciate the offer but I don’t think that’ll be needed,” Bruce says, softly. He slips his glasses from his face, blinking a few times and taking his scarf to clean the lenses. Bruce’s suit is cut a bit like his tux, well fitted and glove-like and Tony stared all through dinner, gazing longingly at the thin lapels and long skinny tie clipped down with an elegant bar at 3/4ths chest. Bruce looks _good_ in ways Tony’s never seen before, and he can hear the swoons for ‘the hunk’ as they pass by the Tourists’ gallery. 

“Flipping SHIELD per diems usually won’t get you very far in a place like this, Dr. Banner,” Tony warns. 

“I never did tell you of my time in Thailand, Tony,” Bruce replies softly as they step into the atrium. Bruce’s hands slide into his pockets as he raises his eyes to the ceiling and looks at the pageantry from afar. “Let’s just say I can make a lot more out of a lot less than you’d think.” 

“Hmm,” Tony replies. “Isn’t gambling illegal there?” 

“Just means you’re playing with your life, Mr. Stark.” Bruce says. “This place is beautiful, thank you for bringing me here. I wouldn’t do too much drinking, though.” 

That’s a weird statement. “Why’s that?” 

Bruce leans in and whispers low in his ear, “because there are some questions I might want to ask when we’re done, if you’ll be so inclined to play along.” 

“You’re being a good sport this evening,” Tony smirks. 

“I suppose you could call it that,” Bruce says. “Do you think you’ll be in a sporting mood after this?” 

“For you,” Tony knows he’s beaming like an idiot, standing underneath a larger than life portrait of Grace Kelly at her most royal. He turns backward, looks at Bruce and tries to play his excitement off, “I believe I could keep something in reserve.” 

It’s a typical weekend night at a place like this, formal and quiet and reminiscent of a time when everyone longed to make like James Bond for a night. The space is palatial, downright glamorous and Tony does not make it a priority to keep tabs on Bruce. 

A man in a white tuxedo invites him into the high-rollers Salon, the one with the secret entrance and all the celebrities, but he shakes his head and plays it off. He’s only been there once, Pepper on his arm back when she was his assistant before Afghanistan. That night, the money had fell from his hand like water as he bought rounds for the table and ruined his luck. He had a hangover for weeks and Pepper only spoke to him professionally for a month. 

The waitress brings him a fresh scotch and soda in the Salons Privés between hands of Texas Hold ‘em. There’s a purple chip sunken in the bottom. Two hundred euros. Bruce must be doing well for himself if he can part with two hundred smackers for a cliché. 

Tony looks up at the woman, tries to remember the lay of her bangs as they hang free from her pulled back hair, the cut of her cheekbones and the color of her eyes. 

“Ma boisson est ruinée, c'est impoli,” Tony murmurs as he flicks a chip onto the waitress’ tray as a tip and apology. “où est l'homme qui l'a payé?”

“Chemin de fer, monsieur,” she smirks, her voice schooled and low. Illegal Thai gambling must have taught Bruce some serious skills, for that kind of fearlessness. Well, you only live once, Tony supposes. “Est-ce que vous voulez que je reviens quand il y a un place libre?” 

“Non,” Tony smiles, he’d promised Pepper he wouldn’t dare touch that game again, “lui dire que j'ai eu mon plaisir.” 

“Oui, monsieur,” she says. He looks in her face for anything, any hint of wondering what, exactly Tony’s done with, and it does not appear. “Bonsoir.” 

He plays another hand just for fun, sips casually at the scotch as he cashes out and fishes the chip from the glass as a tacky souvenir. He stands in the Atrium Privé, watching Bruce’s last round from afar. Bruce is hunched over, his whole body reading easy lukewarm awkwardness. He takes the cards from the dealer easily, head down. He leans in, takes a sip from a glass of red wine. 

The atrium is quiet and the salon is, too. Bruce passes on taking the card-shoe, rises from the table, and takes his leave with his wine glass in one hand and his winnings in the other. His face is almost eerily calm as he emerges from the salon, cashes out. He thumbs through the bills, has obviously done quite well for himself, and slides the neat stack into his inside jacket pocket. 

Bruce casually walks up to him, glass of wine held casually in his palm, and Tony realizes that he’d had low expectations. He didn’t expect, when they started, that Bruce was such a chameleon, awkward while observant, passionate while in action, self-aware while idle. He didn’t expect to see the exquisite machinery beneath Bruce’s skin and self-hatred, the very network of him sprawling like a prism refracting light. As Tony looks into that face with its stoic look of an extremely well traveled everyman, he sees every emotion Bruce has ever been capable of. 

“I’m afraid,” Tony starts, in lieu of a ‘hello’, “that we’ve officially reached that point of being the extremely well-financed soft porno you were worried about becoming.” 

Bruce’s glass is still half full, but he’s holding it as though he has no intention to finish. His free hand is seated in his pants pocket, and he is trying very hard not to preen, to pose as he leans in and smirks, “and if I suggested we made it into something a little more…” 

“Hardcore?” Tony fills in. 

“Stole the word right from my mouth,” Bruce remarks. 

“Punish me for it later?” Tony licks his lips. It’s all tease, and maybe back at the beginning Bruce would have put his head down and blushed, hard, but now he just looks on as a smile blooms across his face and looks away. 

“Only because you’ve asked.” 

Tony licks his lips, hesitates. “Do I get the doctor or the agent?” 

“Which one do you want more?” Bruce asks.

“They’re both you,” Tony says, diplomatically. He stops, walks around Bruce to adjust his tie, the pocket square in his jacket. “Different strengths, weaknesses. I’m sure they could both get their turn, eventually.” 

“Eventually,” The word rolls in Bruce’s mouth. They walk through the Salon Amerique, tables full of quiet card games humming along in the galley. Tony’s reminded of the toy store in Geneva, the pub in Amsterdam. They’ve taken to walking the same way everywhere: shoulder to shoulder, Tony on the right, inside step together, arms never far from linking and fingers hungry for the contact. 

“Does Hulk approve?” Tony asks. 

Bruce pauses. “You expect him to attend this party, too?” 

“No, but I know I’d hate to be left out. It’s an invitation he doesn’t have to take, but one all the less,” Tony replies. “I want you, how ever many of you there are.” 

Bruce turns, looks at him and stops in place. There’s nothing but deep, cascading brown in his eyes amongst the Grand Salon Chandelier’s light. He leans in and kisses Tony, right then and there and doesn’t let up, doesn’t let go even though they can hear the flashbulbs. Ah, yes. The papers. 

“You don’t know what that means to me, Tony.” He whispers. 

“I can approximate,” Tony grins.


	9. Chapter 9

**Port De Fonteville**

Bruce is over by the window when Tony emerges from the bathroom. He stands aside for a minute, watching the soft light cascade over Bruce’s back, the swell of tailored material against his ass, his thighs, the stretch of a fine linen shirt against the span of his shoulders. He looked flawless before, but now that he’s taken off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves he looks visionary. An arm rests against the window, and he’s sprawled out in a lean that brings attention to every lurid curve. Tony can even see the shading of a leather glove as it stretches against the valley of Bruce’s knuckles across the room. 

There’s a crack of thunder outside and Tony’s eyes flick from Bruce’s outline to the window, looking on as boats on the far side of the harbor bob up and down with rough sea. 

“And here I imagined it never rained in Monaco,” Bruce marvels aloud as Tony turns off the bathroom light and closes the door behind him. 

“Everyone just takes the pictures on sunny days,” Tony replies. 

“Your inopportune realism strikes again.”

“What can I say, it’s how I made my millions,” Tony jokes. 

“Everything alright?” Bruce asks.

Tony’s stuffed up and held tight with the party favors Bruce gave him. “I didn’t think I had taken that long.” 

“No longer than expected.” Bruce’s hand gestures toward the desk in the bedroom, flanked by two chairs. To business, then. 

“What, no handcuffs?” Tony jokes. The sky opens up and hard pounding rain drops bounce against the concrete as if on command. “Got to tell you, the last time I played sexy cops and robbers, I got roughed up a lot more.” 

“Is that how you expected the rest of our night to go?” Bruce asks, curiously. “I didn’t anticipate a need for handcuffs in a civil conversation between two upstanding gentlemen. ” 

“Civil and upstanding, eh? I guess that rules out a lap dance,” Tony smiles, walking up beside Bruce, turning to lean against the window, “I supposed all I really envisioned was you making me come.” 

Bruce’s eyes are grey when he finally lifts them from the cup of tea in his free hand, a chintzy ‘welcome to Monaco!’ mug that somehow makes him look even sexier. He chuckles, lowly, “good answer.” 

“What are we doing?” Tony asks. 

“You’re sitting down over there. I’m intending to make an incredibly compelling attempt to coerce a few statements out of you. You will not answer these attempts to my liking. I figure we could play it by ear from there.” 

“Interesting plan, Banner,” Tony notes, stealing Bruce’s cup of tea, watching for the casual annoyance the act will provoke. He coyly tips the mug to his mouth, drinks in the taste of smoke and sugar. “And if I notebook out?” 

“I don’t anticipate getting _that_ rough. I have more self-control than that,” Bruce shrugs. “But you say the word and we stop.” 

Tony flirts. “You want this don’t you?” 

Another lightning strike out on the water, and Bruce’s smile is awkward and inward and filthy through every inch. “I just want you.” 

“Good answer,” Tony leans forward, slips his mouth against Banner’s and kisses with everything he has. It’s all passion and Tony can’t even remember when they started breathing together, thinks it might have started in the Casino or even dinner and yes, his whole body leans in and wants, wants.

Tony breaks away, licks his bottom lip and pulls out one of the chairs at the desk. He sits down, thumbs his tie loose as he sets the cup on the table and passes his hand through his hair. The head of the matte silicone plug slides just right against Tony’s prostate and he can feel the bite of the cock ring as he gets hard, but he doesn’t let it show, not yet. His fingers itch for a cigarette even though he hasn’t smoked one in years. 

“Alright, Agent Banner,” he says, “interrogate me.”

“It’s very nice of you to give me permission, Mr. Stark,” Bruce says, still looking out the window. Bruce pulls out a pebble of silicone, flicks a button so a light in the center starts glowing red, and then cants his hand at the wrist. The plug inside Tony vibrates right at the center, waves carrying down to the neck, up to the head, until every part is wriggling, mind numbing sensation against every place inside him. It takes the wind out of Tony’s sails, leaves him gasping and arching against his seat, reaching out to claw at the edges of the table, his chair. 

And then it all stops, so close to pulling him over the edge. He turns to look over at Bruce as he stands there in the dark. 

“Stop being so smug over there,” he says, his voice wavering. He’s panting, hanging on by a thread already. 

“Oh, you’re still coherent,” Bruce says, breathless and surprised. “That’ll make my job easy. Tell me where you hid the chip.” 

“What do you want with it?” 

Bruce’s hand cants again, just a little. To prove he’s serious, Tony’s brain supplies as his whole body jolts in response, hips arching and oh, that doesn’t do anything but push the tip just right, stretch out Tony’s hole with the curve of the neck. His mouth bends, his voice breaks over the moan he voices as he turns away. 

“The merchant of death goes into the world’s most famous casino through the front door,” Bruce says lowly as he turns on the desk lamp, leaned down so it only illuminates his hands, his chest, his neck framed by the tails of an undone bow tie. “Why has he come, Mr. Stark?” 

Tony suppresses his shiver. Bruce makes the name- the one Tony has rued since he first stepped into the suit-- sound like the sexiest, dirtiest thing he’s ever had the pleasure of being called. He scrambles to find the old Tony Stark, wonders how that guy would answer such a question, “to lose an embarrassing amount of money? I’ve never enjoyed that title, I’m a merchant of a lot of things that have nothing to do with de--” 

Bruce asks, “So what’d you win, merchant? What was given to you tonight? Launch codes, blue prints, coordinates? Forgive the assumption, but you don’t seem like the kind of man who’d invest callously, Mr. Stark.” 

“Call me Tony, please,” Tony hand-waves. “I didn’t get anything other than an incredibly expensive drink and the chance to blow my hard earned money away like a proper member of the one percent. You ever taste the scotch in Monte Carlo, Agent Banner?” 

Bruce doesn’t answer, flicking his wrist back down again. Tony’s breath runs short until he’s panting, parting his legs on the chair. 

“You walked into my trap. You asked for this. You’re stuck, Mr. Stark, and I don’t really have to care if you come. Still, I suppose we can try another way,” Bruce remarks as a hand reaches out, tracing the clench of Tony’s jaw. 

“Nice gloves, Double-Oh,” Tony says, with as much character as he can muster. He sounds strung out in his own ears, is sure this is utterly gratifying to Bruce. 

“I have a thing for plausible deniability,” Bruce murmurs as his fingers curl into Tony’s hair. 

“God, I don’t know who you work for but they really have you by the balls, don’t they? Sending you here, making you talk to me this way,” Tony laughs. He tries to remember the villains of the comic books and adventure novels he read alone as a child. Tries to remember their swagger, their confidence that all was going to plan even as they got caught. “You whore yourself out to the highest bidder? I bet you could extract a few things for me, sometime.” 

Bruce’s free hand tucks the remote back into his pocket, reaches down for the button on Tony’s jacket, undoes the loosened knot of his tie. “Let’s just say I represent a potential buyer for your biggest product. I want Jerichos, Mr. Stark. I want Ediths. How do I get in contact with you?” 

Tony wracks his brain for the way he used to sell these kinds of things, fights the feeling of desire nesting in his stomach. Play the game, he thinks, see it through. “There’s a nice little box on the SI home page. You write me a request for information. My people call your people, we decide what you need and which market we’ll pursue a contract in.” 

“Hmm,” Bruce says as he pulls away Tony’s tie, peels back the fabric of his suit jacket, revealing the trunk of his body, wrapped in fine linen. “And of the gossip that you openly sell your wares on the Black market?” 

“Please, you know my hands never get dirty,” Tony smirks. “I can’t be held responsible for--”

Bruce’s hand cants forward a little and Tony’s legs fall open, his hips rising upward urgently to meet no pressure, empty pleasure that’s still not enough. Tony’s head rolls back, his body rising, rising as he writhes against the wooden chair, biting the inside of his lip to not show Bruce just how much he wants this, needs it. Fuck, he’s still clothed and he’s already a mess. 

“Black,” Bruce says as he pulls out and flicks open a balisong, knotted and jagged and obviously worn from a number of fights. Tony eyes it, watching as the light reflects off the well-used metal, feeling the shot of adrenaline and heat as it rolls up his spine, the danger so arousing it’s almost oppressive. Bruce sits it on the table, next to the mug of tea, like a show of him being serious, “market.” 

“Dead drop,” Tony answers. He’s pulling it out of his ass, now. Shady backroom deals had always been Obie’s department. “We set up a place where I can leave the coordinates. You leave the money, it’s a clean trade.” 

“I wouldn’t quite call it ‘clean,’” Bruce murmurs. 

The buttons of his shirt slowly undo one by excruciating one and Tony’s fingers are clawing half moons into the wood of the chair he’s sitting on, stone still and panting. 

Tony could reach for the knife, he thinks distantly, even up the stakes. Bruce picks it up instead. He holds it to the corner of Tony’s jaw, runs the blade over Tony’s chin and the tip over his wet, swollen bottom lip. A flick of his wrist and Bruce effortlessly cuts through Tony’s undershirt. A pause, Bruce’s surprised hum and then there’s the first touch of body-hot leather on Tony’s skin and he cries out so loud the reactor hurts in his chest when he gasps for air. 

He opens his eyes and sees a glimpse of illuminated mouth, watering for him. 

“So,” it bends into a perfect ‘o’, like it knows Tony’s looking, thinking. “What are you in town for?”

“Vacation,” Tony snarls out. “It has been a long time since I was allowed to have one.” 

Leather splays out against Tony’s ribs, dragging upward with dry friction. A thumb orients toward a nipple, stroking it to hardness. It’s far from the only thing that’s hard. Bruce continues, “You gamble often?”

“Mostly in Europe,” Tony chokes out, “less taxes. Only poker, a little blackjack.” 

“Admitting is the first step, Mr. Stark,” Bruce jokes dryly. “Close any big weapons deals lately?” 

“Saudis, Brits. Koreans. Nothing too exciting,” Tony supplies. “But you can talk to my assistant for a full list if you must know.” 

There’s a crackle of thunder in the distance, lightning. The light flickers as the rain storms harder. Tony looks over, rolls his tongue over chapped lips and Bruce takes the opportunity to cant his hand again, deeper and deeper until Tony has nothing, just shaking, quivering muscles on display like he’s laid out in a surgeon’s theatre. He’s inches away from mindless, sharp begging, pleading. Bruce leans down, licking into his open mouth before pulling back, tracing his lips against Tony’s neck, the sensitive skin on his collarbone, the spidering network of raised veins on his breastbone. And he’s never had this treatment before, the feeling like he’s so close to the edge every minute becomes a mile. 

Bruce’s voice is so deep, so lilting and soft it crawls all over him, “Anthony, What was given to you tonight?” 

“Two hundred Euros,” Tony says, shaking with the truth. “Stop calling me that.” 

“I will. Eventually,” Bruce says so cavalierly as he leans in, takes a nipple into his mouth, between his teeth. “What could a man of your acumen possibly supply someone for two hundred euros?”

Tony’s body clenches, bears everything on the plug and Bruce sets him off when he hesitates. 

“I…please, please,” Tony asks like he doesn’t know how much longer this can go on. He’s so ready, he thinks. “It was a token. A novelty. It was nothing. My compan—“ 

“Yes, tell me of him,” Bruce says as he rolls his fingers down to the bulge in Tony’s pants, stroking softly at where the head is straining. He flicks the trouser buttons open, leads the fly down the zipper. “A Stark employee?”

“The doctor? No, just a traveling buddy,” Tony groans from the pleasure as Bruce’s hand tips once more, and it comes out, “please, please let me come.” 

“I’ve seen the tabloids. Tell me, is he your partner in crime as well as in bed?” another tip of the hand, and Tony can’t sustain it anymore as he nods, so weak for it, “And are you aware that your partner is on several international watchlists, and allied with several criminal groups, Mr. Stark? He’s a terrorist. Walking proliferation, if I do say so myself.” 

“He’s a survivalist,” Tony grits out, and another jolt rockets through him as Bruce tugs his pants down, watches the grotesque show of his cock jumping in dark green briefs. He thinks, fleetingly, that he forgot he had those on. “It’s one of my favorite things about him, really.” 

“He’s your new black market proxy, since Stane’s no longer in play, isn’t he?” Bruce asks. “So you don’t, how’d you say, ‘get your hands dirty?’” 

“No, no, nothing of the--” Tony sobs as Bruce’s hand cants particularly deep, holds him on the edge without mercy. Tony imagines this torture with something far less sexy, car batteries or pliers and god, god _yes_ , this is what he’s been fearing, longing for since Bruce told him the truth. “He doesn’t work for me.” 

“Alright, I’ll bite. So what did your ‘survivalist’ companion’s ‘token’ buy?” Bruce asks as he kisses the base of Tony’s cock through the thin cloth, lets the anticipation crackle in the room even more. It’s a fucking monsoon outside and Tony’s no longer in control of himself and Bruce is there, hand splayed on Tony’s thigh, waiting for a fucking answer. 

“Everything I have,” Tony spills out before even realizing what he’s said, and the moment is frozen and stretched out between the two of them, raw and stinging and hurting so good. 

“Good answer,” Bruce grins razor sharp as he pulls the cock from the front of Tony’s underwear and then a wet, capable tongue strokes in slow motion around the head. Bruce’s mouth descends, lower, lower, and a hand, still swathed in leather reaches up for Tony’s jaw, rolls fingers against Tony’s lips, stuffs them into his mouth as a makeshift gag. Even though Bruce is firmly conducting this symphony, he sucks like he’s at Tony’s service, ready for anything Tony would ask for if Tony’s mouth would just goddamn work. 

And Tony’s body is so pliable, so ready right now that all it would take is those rings coming free and he would be coming so hard he’d break himself right down the middle. But he can’t find the words, and it feels like his finest weapon is firmly in someone else’s control. 

Another strike of lightning, another thunderclap, and the light flicks off for good. 

Bruce’s mouth, his fingers fall away as he gets up to his feet, walks over to the nightstand and flicks the light on and off to no avail. He rolls back up to standing, and Tony’s waiting, excruciatingly patient, biding his time. 

“Take off your clothes and get on the bed, Stark,” Bruce says, soft and reedy and focused and so his own. And Tony can’t stand it, how beautiful it is that Bruce has hacked his own psyche and can call up whatever he needs from the many versions of himself. 

It’s an awkward, unsexy motion, rising from the chair and shrugging off layer after layer, toeing off his shoes and pushing his underwear down his legs. Awkward and unsexy but not humiliating. He’s glowing, now that he’s gotten room to breathe. Glowing with energy, the desperation for more a burn in the back of his throat. He’s not an idiot, he’s not too far away to know that he just needs to come and sleep for a week in Bruce’s arms but that doesn’t matter right now as he approaches the bed, gets his feet up and stretches out, face down and ass up. He knows what he looks like, he knows his place. 

And he knows Bruce hasn’t taken a single piece of clothing off since they started. 

“It’s not that easy, Anthony,” Bruce says as he gets on the bed behind Tony, leather cascading down the sides of Tony’s back. 

“Doctor,” is the only thing Tony can fix his mouth around. It sounds like begging, like permission in his own ears. And he manhandles Tony, manipulates all of Tony’s body, pushing his hips down and his shoulders back and Bruce’s mouth slides against his cheek, tongue flittering over the place where jaw meets skull. Adrenaline floods through him, and he leans back against linen and wool like a cat. 

Bruce doesn’t need to be asked, as his hands explore the definition of wrists and elbows and knees and ankles and every touch ratchets up the tension. 

The rain has petered off a bit, eased to a soft background noise and there’s another pause, more room to breathe. Bruce pulls out the remote once more, turns it on until the silicone glows red, and cants his hand once more. Tony’s hands fly backwards, reach and grip for Bruce and his hips lower down, grinding against Bruce’s erection, all pressure and pleasure and need everywhere. 

“Look at you,” Bruce remarks, and Tony does as told, eyes lifting to his reflection in the mirror hung conspicuously above the bed. Tony’s hair is too-long and slightly unruly, and the light of the reactor adds shadows to the planes of his face. He looks tired and strung out and so hungry he hasn’t slept or eaten for a week. His eyes are wide and sunken and soft and every breath he takes with Bruce means a trembling inhale, trying to hold onto any control he can find as he exhales. 

In that moment, sitting naked and so ready, it all makes sense. 

Bruce pushes him down onto the bed again and he goes willingly, easily. There are touches everywhere, with Bruce’s wet mouth and the texture of Bruce’s warm, exposed wrists as they offset the gloves, and when leather parts him right down the middle he arches up and presents himself to Bruce there, in the dark. They stay like that for a little while, like Bruce is waiting for something, and as Tony opens his mouth to ask for anything, please, please don’t look like that, the wide flat of Bruce’s tongue presses a wet line against the underside of his swollen dick, flicking up to caress the head. 

Tony’s hands fly out, sink into the bedspread. It hurts to breathe, he’s so aroused, his whole body defined with the need to give in. And he’s so close, so decadently close, so frustrated and impatient. 

“I have to earn it, Banner?” Tony’s voice cracks as Bruce’s fingers shrink away and pick up the remote once more. Tony can hear the vibration this time as it picks up, higher, higher, higher. It’s ripped from him, slid free with impatience even as he’s clenching down around it and there’s glove leather pressed right up against him, preparing him, smearing lube into him like Bruce wants to be sure this won’t hurt. 

Bruce’s free hand reaches up, takes a solid grip of Tony’s hair and pulls until Tony’s incoherent again, rocking back and forth on the fingers, moaning at the feel of leather as it breaches inside him. Tony’s growling and groaning and he finally takes the hint, rolling his body back upward and not bothering to catch himself as Bruce pulls him back to lean against him on the bed. 

And then the fingers are gone and Tony feels the wet head of Bruce’s cock as it slides into him, further, further until he’s completely seated. Bruce’s hands stretch all of Tony’s body out, pushes every line and silently gets him to relax once Tony’s sprawled all over him. His hips slowly, excruciatingly pull away from Tony, leaving him empty. 

Bruce fucks with his whole body, his hands reaching for Tony’s hips, his back arching so his chest can scrape starched formal linen against the column of Tony’s spine, his breath dancing across Tony’s ear and neck and he takes it so slow, so very slow, pistoning out of Tony and then filling him back up. 

Tony whines at the feeling. He throws his head back and keens as he grabs at the sheets. His feet point and he tries to find leverage and yet there is no energy for that, all of it spinning, spinning at the base of his spine as he gets fucked. Bruce’s knees bend and he reaches under Tony’s thighs to lift him up a little and get that extra inch. 

“Oh, oh god. Banner, c’mon, fuck me,” Tony gasps. “I can’t take it, I need…” 

“Tell me what you need, Tony,” Bruce says, his voice a drug unlike any Tony’s ever met. “Come on, it’s okay.” 

It’s that rhythm, that tempo that Bruce approaches all things with, the way it’s overpowering every sensation Tony’s ever enjoyed. He closes his eyes and cries out for it, prisoner to it, no torture ever so exquisite. There’s vibration across a nipple, the other. It crawls across the rim of the reactor as it lights up the room. Tony arches, clenches, hears Bruce’s breath hitch, feels the pause of Bruce’s careful swallow. 

The flood gates break. 

“Banner, Banner please let me come, I can’t handle this anymore, I promise I’ll do whatever you want, whatever you ask but you have to, you have to, I can’t,” Tony groans. “Please, please, you don’t understand, I’ll let you fuck me into the ground I want it but I have to come, I can’t stand it anymore and I hate myself for it and I’ll let you have every…” 

“You never needed permission, Tony,” Bruce says like he’s on the edge of everything himself. And then there’s vibration against the head of his cock, so high and beautiful that all of Tony, every single atom stops and all that’s left to do is scream and paw at the sheets and let Bruce have this, fuck into it as Tony gasps and heaves like a king dying on his throne. There’s white, white, white. 

Bruce takes the pace of a maniac, gives it to Tony with every muscle in his body until Tony’s both mindless and totally aware, aware of how the rhythm’s changed so wildly, how Bruce drags so much of himself against Tony’s prostate on every pass. Bruce’s hand fits over Tony’s mouth as he gets fucked through what feels like orgasm but isn’t. Tony’s cock bounces with the motion, completely unaided. And owned. 

Tony’s just trying to breathe, fingers twitching at the thought. 

“Let me hear you, Stark,” Bruce whispers, his voice cutting through Tony. “Let me hear you take it.” 

He lets himself go, his breath haggard and worn, his mouth breaking on syllables, spouting unfinished equations of language. A hand shoves at Tony’s leg, raising it higher. It’s so deep, now, Bruce is so deep Tony’s insane with the hunger. 

“How long do you think I could keep you like this? You feel that fit? You feel how you stretch around me? How long could you stand that?” Bruce says, softly. The words are breathless, venom replaced with the curiosity only a medical doctor would have. “You’ll be sore in the morning in ways you’ve never felt before, if we keep this up.”

It is excruciating-- utterly, wonderfully excruciating to bend his dried out, fucked out voice around Bruce’s name. 

“You’ll have to crawl for a few days,” Bruce says, his mouth stretching into a grin at the corner of Tony’s jaw. “Doctor’s orders.” 

And Bruce slows down, drags every movement to its most elegant end. 

“Maybe I should take pity on you, because this is mean. I am being so very, very mean to you,” he muses, “But it’s only because I can, Tony. Only because I know what you want.”

A kick of Bruce’s hip and Tony’s spread out like a crime scene on the sheets, laying fused together, drenched in sweat and inarticulate submission. His hands roll against Bruce’s arms, his neck, as they lay there. There’s the silent smooth heat of Bruce’s gloved fingertips as they finally slide over the pillar of Tony’s erection and the solid mass of Bruce’s body surrounding him and it’s so close, Tony would start crying if he thought it was going to help his case. 

Bruce sighs, a calm hot breath against the back of Tony’s neck, “I think it’s time.” 

The ring flicks open and the world simply ends.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been out. He comes to, realizes that Bruce is still inside him. Tony turns, takes Banner’s mouth even if the angle’s awkward. He feels full, content. Loved.

“How did we not think to get that on video?” Tony asks, weakly. Bruce’s whole body guffaws with a laugh. Tony can feel it everywhere. 

“That’s not quite my first thought,” Bruce says. 

“What is?” Tony asks, gently. 

Bruce is silent for a beat, one that tells Tony he’s not sure if this is a hypothetical question or one he’s expected to answer. Maybe Bruce is sinking into his own head, Tony supposes. He reaches down, flicks the glove Bruce is wearing open and rolls the leather away from his skin, linking their fingers together. He’s bone deep tired, soaked through in come but can’t bring himself to break away, break the chain. It’s too good, he thinks desperately, even if Bruce is already off in himself.

“I’ve never been given so much before,” Bruce finally admits. Tony’s fingers clench and his eyes float shut and all he can think is that--

“I guess we both lucked up, then. So tell me why aren’t you naked?” 

“I thought you liked the suit,” Bruce replies. 

“Fuck, Banner. Trust me I do, but—“ Tony pauses, thinks, “it’d be kind of nice to have you naked right now. It would make me feel less like a well tuned fiddle.” 

“Mmm.” 

Bruce slides away and Tony’s left empty and gaping and still so hungry. He knows Bruce will be back in no time, can see it in Bruce’s eyes as he gently uses a hand to push Tony flat against the bed. He watches as Bruce takes his time licking Tony clean of ejaculate. 

“How?” Tony asks, shaking with oversensitivity as Bruce’s tongue slides against the crown, the slit. “How am I still hard? What did you do to me?” 

“You don’t know the things your body can do, Tony,” Bruce’s words come out as a half-purr, half tisk. When Tony looks down at him, really looks, he can see Bruce savoring this like there’s no finer taste in his world. When Tony’s finally clean, Bruce slides his mouth against the planes of Tony’s chest, even wet pressure against his nipples, his neck. 

They roll over. Tony slides his hands up against the shirt and undoes the buttons one by one. It takes a bit of work but it gets open as Bruce wriggles free from his slacks. He isn’t wearing any underwear. Tony reaches, traces the long swell of a calf, Bruce’s muscles deceptively soft as they finally kiss, Bruce’s mouth wet and salty and warm. 

Tony pushes his mouth against Bruce’s collarbone, follows the outline of his chest hair. Bruce growls, closes his eyes at the attention Tony takes as the last shred of clothing, his other glove, falls away. Bruce raises a leg to make room for Tony’s hips to fit and there’s something shaded black underneath him. 

Tony reaches for the remote, stares. “You sneaky bastard.” 

“You thought I’d let you suffer alone?” Bruce asks, taking it from him, flicking the remote on. 

“How…how long have you been…” 

“For as long as you were,” Bruce shrugs. No big deal. Tony smiles, leans down and takes Bruce’s mouth, pushing a knee against the plug and flicking Bruce’s hand with the remote all the way back. Bruce’s little breathless gasp sounds like toe-curling, incredible pleasure. 

“Mm,” Tony grins. “Taste of your own medicine?” 

“I always take what I dish out,” Bruce’s mouth opens into a teasing smile. “Quality control.” 

He chuckles at that as he sits square atop Bruce, lets him in, slides back down over him. He holds his mouth just out of reach, leaning back and forth as he drags his hole against Bruce’s cock, back arching, steady. His body is still reeling in the euphoria that is orgasm, still spinning him higher and higher even after he’s blown his load. 

Now that the pressure and the physical need has lessened, Tony fucks like ocean tide crashing along the port wall. The remote in his hand tips in counterpoint with his hips, simulating the feel of a third person, taking his time with Banner, intoxicating him with pleasure. He keeps going until Bruce snaps, his eyes a storm of their own in the arc reactor’s light. 

“I’ll be so sore tomorrow,” Tony whispers fondly, remembering the way his legion of kittenish ingénues once did. “Broken in.” 

“Won’t be able to walk,” Bruce repeats, like it’s the most decadent thing in the world. He reaches for Tony’s arms, pins them to the small of his back, thrusts up into Tony like he wants the pleasure to hurt. It does, radiating sparks of too-vivid pleasure, and Tony’s body shakes, as he drops the remote, finally. 

“But I bet you could take me anywhere,” Tony bites his lips and narrows his eyes, the act dripping with entendre. “Would you, _Doctor_? Would you throw me down, and take me if I asked, just like this? We could do all that deep breathing and soul gazing, and then get downright raunchy after.” 

“God, Tony,” he moans. Tony can practically hear his crank turning. 

“Or maybe you like the idea of me on my knees for you. What’d you call it?” It takes a little more work with his hands held behind his back, but Tony rolls himself up a little farther, risks Bruce falling out before taking him deep again, making them both arch and groan. “Doctor’s orders? You deserve a reward for your exquisite bedside manner, after all. I think I could pencil in a good throatfuck some time in the afternoon tomorrow, if you’re free.”

“You’re a terrible person,” Bruce murmurs as he lifts twitching, needy fingers from his free hand to Tony’s face. His eyes slide shut, mouth parting in need, in wait. Tony loves looking, watching. Seeing this. He takes what little leverage he has and leans down, lays against Bruce’s chest. He takes the kiss Bruce so desperately wants to give him. He kisses with everything he has before he uses Bruce’s grip to lift himself away, stop, let the pressure rise again, let Bruce’s muscles flick against his prostate with maddening skill. He gives Bruce his thanks in the burn of bearing down, bottoming out and Tony stays there, his hands crossed at the small of his back, so full of Banner he feels like the guy’s in his throat. He stays like that until pins and needles run along his arms, until he needs more lube, until he’s spilling himself out onto the bed, dry and shivering through it, reeling with how he hasn’t been touched properly. It’s addictive, that feeling. Tony knows he needs more. 

This time, Tony sees how Bruce comes apart, with hitched shivering breaths and soft half-strokes. A body with every muscle pulled tight. After, he lets Tony’s hands slide free and melts backward into the bed, staring up. 

They kiss, languid strokes of tongue and lazy clacks of teeth. And Bruce’s eyes are soft, gentle in the arc reactor’s light, watching, cataloguing every reaction. 

“Banner,” Tony moans. “I want…” 

“Hmm?” Bruce asks. 

His body’s bone tired and already sore and god, he wants to sleep for a month but still, all his body wants is for Bruce to, “open me up again? Please, Bruce?” 

Bruce’s mouth flexes into a genuine smile, “only because you asked so very politely.” 

They both fall quiet after that, with mouths too busy elsewhere, brains left behind. It’s all body talk now, the language of skin on skin, fingers and hips and the strain of muscles, of breath. 

They lose track of time. 

Some time later, Tony dreams of normalcy: oppressive, frustrating. He dreams of a wife he doesn’t need and children he doesn’t want, of a modest house in Jersey. He dreams of what would happened if he’d met Bruce in that life. What would have happened if Bruce were still the man he is, lurking in the shadows and putting himself on the line while Tony kept his head down, chugged along content in his daily life. Maybe he would be frightened, or maybe afraid. Maybe he’d have the same endless, effortless curl of desire manifesting in his gut. He’s at an abysmal corporate happy hour with Capsicle when he turns to Tony and--

“Get up, loser, there’s breakfast.” 

Tony’s body already tells him he’s slept far past noon, but he knows that voice from anywhere, and it’s definitely not Bruce’s. “Whatever you say, Regina.” 

“C’mon and get up. Wheels up in two hours.” Rhodey’s chuckle is bone deep, and a pair of jeans fall on to Tony’s stomach, the cloth covering his junk as he lays there in bed. Tony’s eyes pop open. 

“What do you mean?” Tony asks as he stares at the ceiling. 

“The reactor engine project needs your attention, and SHIELD needs Banner,” Rhodey says. “So while I’m sure your vacation has been illuminating and incredibly enjoyable, and you’ll brag to all your robots that you found yourself in the last few weeks, the real world requires you to be a big boy for a bit.” 

“You mean Fury sent you.” 

“Whatever kind of girl do you take me for, Mr. Stark?” Rhodey’s Blanche Dubois impression gets better every time Tony hears it, even after all these years. “I am a one-agent lady, I do declare.” 

It’s too early for Tony to laugh this hard. “So you’re doing a solid for capcicle.” 

“He thought I would know how to ask you nicely,” Rhodey nods. Tony turns, stares. Jim’s still wearing most of his armor from the waist down. “Hence, Breakfast.” 

“ _Hence_?” Tony asks. “You’re in the book club too, aren’t you?”

“It was my idea.” 

“How are we friends?” Tony asks, gesturing at Rhodey’s get-up. “And, you look ridiculous.” 

“Yeah, well, this is how much Dr. Angry and I could get off before we both decided to move on,” Rhodey replies. “It’s kind of hard to take your pants off in front of other people when you’re in a steady relationship.”

“Dr. Angry?” Tony gurgles. 

“Banner. You’re not the only one who thinks up clever shit to call that guy,” Rhodey shrugs. 

“He know you call him that?” 

“Seeing as it’s his call sign, I’d hope so. In the spirit of interagency collaboration and patriotism, of course,” he grins. 

“You…you knew?” 

“I did,” Jim nods, walks casually to the window, watches a boat sailing to the pier. “There was so much paperwork. Just so I could get put on a fucking interagency assignment where I’d fly a damn plane for once. You’d think, with all that fucking eco-mindness, that one of these days they’d give the filing in triplicate a break.”

“What happened?” 

“They didn’t tell me the person I’d be providing air cover for was going to constantly swat at my plane and try to break it in half for most of the skirmish,” Rhodey smiles. “You ever get the feeling your whole life’s a supporting strand in someone else’s ridiculous movie?” 

“I didn’t,” Tony says, softly as he sits up and places his feet on the ground, “I didn't know. I thought it was just...” 

“You should know by now that it’s never just…” 

“And what if I don’t wanna go, huh? What then?” Tony changes the subject. “And seriously, no offense but this is what qualifies as asking nicely?”

“No, The breakfast I just made your lazy ass is ‘what qualifies as asking nicely,’” Rhodey says. “Besides, I have it on good authority that Dr. Angry is much better at executing orders than you’ve ever been, so it’s probably a good idea to fall in line on this one before you end up getting sedated.” 

“You know,” Bruce says as he leans against the doorsill, still dressed in the clothes he wore to bed earlier and carrying a mug, “I can’t get away with that trick if you spoil my plan, Colonel.” 

“That was your plan to get him back to the plane, too?” Rhodey asks as he turns to walk out of the room. 

“Ha ha,” Tony supplies as he watches Jim go. “You look like a knight of the round table.” 

“You should have seen him in the kitchen. And on the couch, for that matter,” Bruce grins, taking off his glasses. He’s wearing one of the Poison t-shirts Tony bought in Geneva and a pair of underwear cut so they look like gym shorts. The combination looks ridiculous, with pushed back hair and a beard that has been hacked down to a goatee. If Tony lets his eyes unfocus, Bruce is one arc reactor short of a fantastic Tony Stark Impression. Bruce turns, reaches for one of the bags and pulls out a pair of straight-legs and an oxford. “I can officially cross ‘watching kung-fu movies with War Machine’ off my bucket list.” 

“And you didn’t think to invite me in on this little bro date?” Tony guffaws. 

“I’m not sure I’d characterize my relationship with Colonel Rhodes as one where there’s ‘bromance’, honestly,” Bruce says. “One could develop but it was really just flipping channels until we found something in English and suitably entertaining.” 

“That sounds bromantic, Banner,” Tony warns, watching as Bruce goes through the menial tasks of underwear, deodorant, socks, “and Honeybear’s just adorable enough to suck you in without you noticing.” 

“Says the man who refuses to stop calling him ‘honeybear.’” 

“Hey, I’m totally at peace with my bromantical relationship with Rhodey. I made the guy a suit after he stole one that didn’t fit him right, of all things,” Tony says, finally getting out of bed, walking over to the bathroom. “It sucks that we have to go so soon. I was gonna--”

“Spoil me?” Bruce asks. “You already did that, Tony. Far more than I’ve ever been spoiled before. You don’t even have to worry.” 

“I didn’t say I was worried. I just wanted to do more of it,” Tony shrugs. His face darkens, and he thinks back to last night during a particularly nasty bend. “You were right. I turned into you.” 

“No you didn’t,” Bruce smiles. “You just think you did because of that mountain man neck beard you grew.”

“So why does it feel…” 

“Tony,” Bruce says as he wraps his arms around him, “clarification won’t make endurance any easier.” 

“So I should suffer?” Tony asks. 

“Not in the conventional sense. Just…you’re yourself, but you see the ways we fit, the ways we change each other. You see all your jagged edges and all of mine and some of them line up, that’s all,” Bruce shrugs. 

“Can’t really have a proper exploration of those edges when everybody’s coming in and trying to pull you out of it,” Tony can’t help but waggle his eyebrows. 

“The only person trying to pull you out of your vacation from reality is my boss because the world’s on fire again. It’s always on fire, Tony.” Bruce sounds a bit bored for how hilarious that sentence is, in Tony’s opinion. “You’re going to have to adjust.”

“I know, I know,” Tony sighs and realizes he’s actually decently sore from the marathon he ran last night, apparently. “Still. Monaco. And this was supposed to be a sex vacation, which could have very well taken place in reality, if you wouldn’t have decided to give it a dose of the heavies. Also I was working on a cunning plan to get you to agree to dressing up like Justin Hammer so I could hate fuck you.” 

Bruce waits a beat like he’s not really sure he heard that correctly. Tony imagines the expression he’s wearing on his face right now, all fidgety twitchy confusion, “There are easier ways to tell me you have a death wish, frankly speaking. I’m pretty sure hate fucking is a hard trigger for the big guy.” 

“Oh come on. You and Hulk won’t know until you try it,” Tony says, coming out of the bathroom and walking over to their bag, pulling out his clothes. “It’s actually quite cathartic when you get in the--”

“We do not have time for the two of you to hate fuck each other in the name of science,” Rhodey deadpans from the far end of the hallway, his flat sigh bouncing off of marble walls. 

“Eavesdropping is incredibly rude, sour patch!” Tony calls back. 

“You know, when he gets around you he sounds a bit like a younger, more even-keeled Fury,” Bruce points out, putting his glasses back on and flicking a hand through his hair. “It’s almost shocking.” 

“Where do you think I get my immunity from?” Tony pulls the t-shirt over his head, stopping for a second because even though it’s clean, it smells like Bruce.

 

 

 

**Rue Costes et Bellonte**

It’s raining in the private terminal at the airport. 

“You got the Lear? Jesus, Rhodes,” Tony grunts. “Even I can’t get the Lear for three people.” 

“I wouldn’t quite say it’s three people,” Bruce supplies, legs folded into lotus position, back straight on the sofa. “It’s three people, a car, mobile artillery, and a bouncy castle in case I succumb to Hulk-related air sickness.” 

“He gets it,” Rhodey points at Bruce. Bruce’s mouth turns up in a wry smile and he looks like he’s on the verge of proposing a high-five. “This is one of the few times Pepper thought it appropriate to spoil everybody before we have to fill out lots of insurance forms.” 

“She spoils everybody but me, nowadays,” Tony pouts. 

“Making up for all that lost time she devoted to spoiling you, perhaps,” Rhodey ponders as a thunderclap resonates so hard it makes the windows shake. “It’s probably best if we wait for a bit. I’m gonna make some calls.” 

Tony nods as Rhodey leaves. Across the room, Bruce is stone still, eyes half-lidded in an attempt to quiet his mind. Tony sits alongside, uses his fingers to brush along the span of Bruce’s lax, upturned palm. He tries to commit the dimensions to memory, the width and length, the curve of each individual finger, the callouses from micropipets and scalpels. 

Banner’s face is slack, his eyes lowered to half mast. He looks perfectly submissive, near comatose. He looks like eons could pass and he’d still be there on the little leather sofa in the VIP lounge in the Cote D’azur airport. His hand slowly, gently reaches toward Tony’s and he murmurs, softly, “feel my heart.” 

“You having a notebook moment, McAdams?” Tony asks, hesitating. Still, he does as told, and brings his hand to Bruce’s chest. Bruce’s heart is barely beating, a weak up and down that doesn’t serve to convince anyone Bruce is even alive. “That one of your special tantric super assassin powers? Playing Possum?” 

“I’ve been working on it,” Bruce says. “Big guy says ‘red lady’ has her tricks, so we should have ours.” 

“Looking good in a leather catsuit ain’t gonna make that list,” Tony jokes, “so you’d rather will your own heart to stop?” 

“Only temporarily,” Bruce shrugs. “Hulk wouldn’t be happy with me trying to play this game for keeps. It’s always best to freak someone out completely while they’re trying to feel you up from the inside, in his opinion. ” 

“How very Nine Inch Nails,” Tony smiles. 

“I thought they were too ‘metrosexual’ for you,” Bruce says, like he doesn’t even realize he’s making a joke. 

“It was better than whatever we were listening to while you were driving in Italy,” Tony remarks. 

Bruce does break form and guffaws at that statement, shaking his head. “You were the one who stole my phone and decided it was time for the global music playlist. It’s not my fault that you thought it was going to be all throat singing and dolphins.” 

“Would it have killed you to cut the klaxons and horns for five minutes with dolphins? It wouldn’t’ve killed me.” 

“It was worth it for your Major Lazer rant when you got out the car. I’ve never witnessed anyone becoming so crotchety in such a short period of time before.”

“Fucking whippersnappers with their fucking drum kits,” Tony moans. “How does the big guy not freak out while you listen that stuff?” 

There’s a moment where Banner looks almost hurt by that, but he turns and smiles. 

“Tin Man need expand horizon. Banner music remind Hulk of Rio. First time Banner like Hulk.” Bruce says simply, deep and bassy. “Tin man music make Hulk angry, Banner music make Hulk ready to smash. Or not. Depends.” 

“That’s poetic,” Tony says. “Banner okay with you talking to me again?” 

“Banner say Hulk answer if Hulk want,” Bruce’s hands take his glasses off like they’re precious, holding them in his hands. He looks at Tony, eyes clear green and then lifts his head to look around like he’s wondering where they are. “Go home now?” 

“Yeah, big guy. Rhodey came to take us home.” 

“Shiny gun man?” 

“I, uh, yeah. Sure.” 

“Hulk like shiny gun man. Stop ‘Hulkbusters’. Make good pancakes.” 

“Yeah, he does, doesn’t he?” Tony adds as Banner shifts, rolls his body down onto the side of the couch and lays his head on Tony’s lap. 

“Hulk like pancakes.” 

“Course you do,” Tony murmurs.

Rhodey’s walking back in and taking the seat on the other side of Tony on the couch, “Steve, Steve, this isn’t your pho-, Steve, no Steve. _Captain_ , give the phone to your girlfri-- Listen, I need to plan something with her. No, it’s not about you. That’s an _order_ , soldier.”

Tony plucks the phone away and holds it up to his ear. “Didn’t I tell you that if you broke Honeybear’s heart I’d unleash my leg breaking robot on your super-soldier ass, Rogers?” 

“You seriously spent time making a leg breaking robot Tony?” Pepper asks, only a little incredulously, “was this before or after we broke up?” 

“It might have been my equivalent to eating a tub of Ben and Jerry’s, I’m willing to admit,” Tony says. Rhodey’s face-palm is so abrupt it’s audible, and the sound makes Bruce (or Hulk, Tony’s past keeping score on who’s sitting in on this conversation) clench all over in laughter.

“Tony, this is important. Can you please give the phone back to Rhodey?” she asks, softly. Tony’s not sure if that’s because she’s embarrassed to be the reason why such a monstrosity exists, or if it’s just because she’s good at sounding like she’s had to endure a lot of shit in a very limited amount of time. 

“Sure, if you remind Steve that I will break his _legs_.” 

“It’s more complicated than that, Tony,” Rhodey says, snatching for the phone.

“To be fair, the three of you are handling this incredibly,” Bruce smiles. 

“I appreciate that compliment, Doctor Banner,” Rhodey nods, and then turns into the phone, “Now, _you_. Remember that rain check you gave me in Berlin? Yeah. Well guess what, I want to square up in Brooklyn.” 

Rhodey’s using that ‘flyboy’ voice that’s equal parts menacing determination and seduction. Tony’s seen it tested in the field to very successful ends, but he stops listening before he hears something he really, really doesn’t want. He looks down at Bruce. 

“Hulk says he guesses the spooning did lead to forking, eventually,” Bruce grins. 

“The Batman to your Robin knew about my best friend’s complicated relationship with a man twice his age and my ex before I did? Man, Why am I the last one to know everything?” Tony whines. 

“Hey, why am I Robin?” 

“Missing the point, Banner.” 

“Look, Tony. You asked him to put it in an e-mail so you could read it later,” Bruce points out. “And then, as always, you decided you shouldn’t read that e-mail because e-mails are boring and you found another cache of weapons or you decided you should spend more time inventing things.” 

“It’s like you’re in my brain,” Tony deadpans. 

“Maybe you could be more mindful about the things happening around you, Tony,” Bruce suggests. “He asked you about it a month before that gala and you said you’d poison the well if you gave him any advice on Pepper. For Christ’s sake, stop pouting.” 

“This is my processing face. Let me process.” 

“That is a terrible processing face. I certainly hope you didn’t make that processing face in relation to me, ever,” Bruce says, easily. “Stop processing.” 

Tony reaches down and slides a hand into Banner’s hair. Even though it’s shorter than Tony really likes, it’s soft and fluffy. It’s a mop on his head, easy to ruffle and fuck with. After he’s done, he brushes a stray curl off Bruce’s forehead, and Bruce’s hand comes up, palm dragging from Tony’s forehead to his chin like a child pawing at a parent. 

“Seriously,” Bruce says. “No more processing. You’re not a robot.” 

“Fine. I’ll be human. For you,” Tony says, looking out at the wet runway and the Stark Industries plane that’s come to bring them back home. “Don’t tell anybody.” 

Bruce holds up three fingers in a mocking salute. “Scout’s honor.” 

Tony just marvels.


	10. Chapter 10

**Cooper Square**

There’s a wall covered in pictures on the recreation floor for Stark Residency. The scanned print of clipped articles, juicy tidbits from anonymous sources pulled off blogs. Tony’s been away long enough that some of them are a ridiculous surprise, pictures from angles Tony would consider most unflattering, maybe even embarrassing if he knew shame. As it is, the only real part that’s actually embarrassing is the name the Americans chose to run their tumultuous romance under. 

“’Brucerony?’” He’d asked the first time Pepper had shown him the wall, proof they’d been keeping an eye on Tony’s exploits. “What are we, the San Francisco treat?” 

“To be fair, I feel like they’d probably call us the ‘San Francisco Treat’ if the American press had gone with ‘Science Boyfriends.’ I don’t even do your science,” Bruce said, blushing. Pepper had smiled at him, kissed them both on the cheek as a welcome back, and promptly excused herself for that adventure into Brooklyn with Rhodey. 

“You _could_ do my science,” Tony turned to Bruce, eyebrows waggling. “You are smarter than I am.” 

“Oh yeah? Says who?” 

“Wikipedia, mostly. Scientific American couldn’t verify, so we ended up in a very, very attractive tie. Trust me, nobody I’d rather be tied up with,” Tony’s voice lowers as he creeps a little closer, slides an arm around Bruce’s hip. “Not a bad haul for your first media tour, if I do say so myself.” 

“Not my first ‘media tour,’ just the first time it didn’t come with a body count,” Bruce said. 

Even with the pictures of Rhodey and Pepper and Steve getting caught on camera with chintzy headlines and false rumors of romance-of-the-week’s between Natasha, Jane, Darcy and Clint, the wall of tabloids still makes Bruce blush every time he walks down toward the Hulk’s playspace. Tony shrugs, and thinks that the fact that Bruce can walk and blush at the same time while the Hulk’s begging for some time in the spotlight is likely progress. 

Tony knows he’s all about the season-long whirlwind romances, especially when the long term seems so excruciating, like he’s setting himself up to fail. He’s not, though. Not this time. Not with Bruce, who is ever shifting and evolving, with adventure in his eyes no matter the color and passion in his hands no matter what they hold. So it’ll work, Tony thinks, it works even when they can’t break themselves away from projects, from clean rooms and foundries, and stockholder meetings or Helicarrier appearances. It’s the hunger, how it ebbs and flows into them, cleans all the places that rot inside them for too long. 

The summer heat has broken in Manhattan, and they’ve descended into another too-hot fall. Tony can feel it in his reactor, in the expansion of the metal underneath his skin as it aches, deep. He thinks the winter will be colder than anyone expects, and he can’t wait for the chorus of ‘where’s your global warming now’ he’ll hear as he rubs elbows for the arc reactor’s clean energy in rooms full of nonbelievers over the holidays. 

Bruce left for another mission three days ago. Tony makes sure his interns are well fed and his lab assistants are properly watered. He also runs himself ragged, arranging a concert of resources so like the one that produced the Mach II, bits and pieces under cover of inventor’s secrecy. This is smaller, and Tony knows the dimensions are correct, the grip perfect. 

He watches from afar as robotic arms from the metal shops slowly hack away at the metal and polymers, assemble the pieces and wield them together carefully, each work tempered and seated in its own holster, wrapped delicately in black velvet, slowly lowered into the bamboo box it had taken Tony three assistants and two personal shoppers to find. The box waits on Tony’s mantle. 

Tony wakes up in the middle of the night. The room is pitch black, the sheets and Tony’s shirt blocking the reactor’s light. Someone’s in the bed with him. He knows that heat from anywhere. 

“Back so soon?” Tony says. 

“You could be dreaming,” Bruce whispers. 

“If I were dreaming, you’d probably be tied up on my desk and donning a particularly well-envisioned mad scientist costume,” Tony smiles as the back of Bruce’s hand unrolls against Tony’s. The touch induces shivers. “Trust me, I’ve thought about this one a lot: You’d look spectacular in an empire bodice and you’re just grey enough to pass for the 1800s.” 

“You’re already bored enough with me to suggest steampunk?” Bruce jokes. “I must be doing several things wrong, clearly. Should be rectified.” 

“Immediately,” Tony agrees, lazily. “There might have been a cravat involved.” 

“I don’t think I want to know.”

“You sure? We might have the time if I tell JARVIS to—“ 

Bruce’s body slides up against his, “We don’t have the time. I will sedate you again if I have to, don’t think I won’t.” 

“I can never tell if you’re serious about that, but I want you to know that I really am happy you mentioned it to me. So I could steel myself this time,” Tony says, matter of factly. “But if you sedate me you don’t get anything. And I’ll be angry. Won’t like me when I’m--” 

“I didn’t come for sex, Tony,” Bruce says, softly. “I came because I wanted to be with you.” 

“I meant I have something to give you. A present. Something I’ve been working on,” Tony says, as he shrugs free from bed, walks out to the living room to grab the box. He leans against the doorsill. “JARVIS, lift the shades for a bit? Twenty minutes?” 

“Of course, sir.” 

The light pollution of a foggy Manhattan night streams into the room and Tony aches in the silence as Bruce rolls himself up to sitting. He places the box in front of Bruce, and then slides under the sheets once more, wrapping around Bruce’s back, dragging his mouth softly against the sweat on Bruce’s shoulder. 

“Tony, if it includes a pocket watch or extraneous buttons I’m really not in the mood,” Bruce warns, but he slides the cover back, peels back the velvet, and lifts the first gun from its holster. He holds it carefully in both of his hands, cradles it. “Stark Industries never made handguns before.” 

“Nope,” Tony says, softly. “Never. These are an extremely limited edition.” 

Bruce flicks his fingers against the grip, lines the gun up in his sight and exhales. It fits his hand so well, his finger stroking the trigger. Tony unwraps and pushes the other into Bruce’s free hand. 

“They only fit to you, they’re coded to recharge off your radiation levels, and you can change the level of electricity or radiation that gets fired. There’s a compartment for Shield’s bullets in the grip, you just have to flick the safety in the other direction and they’ll fire those, too.” Tony continues. His hands curl around the bottom half of Bruce’s wrists, and he curls his fingers around the underside of the gun, his hand stretching to surround Bruce’s, his thumb stroking the back of Bruce’s. “They only fire for you. They’re silent, they discharge next to nothing. They’ll absorb your fingerprints and there’s little to no recoil. And most important of all, they won’t fire at you.” 

“Did that feel good?” Bruce asks softly as Tony’s fingers trace up Bruce’s arms, studying the swell of each muscle as it pops under Bruce’s skin. “Did it feel good to tell me that?”

“A little,” Tony says. “Like getting back on the horse again, I’ll admit.” 

“Making the rain,” Bruce murmurs. 

“Making the guns you bring to all those knife fights, is more like it,” Tony returns. “Would it help if I told you it sort of filled the darkness, a bit?” 

“A little. I know you want to help any way you can,” Bruce nods. “Thank you. You don’t know what these mean.”

“They scare you a little, don’t they?” Tony asks. He wraps his hands around the bare trunk of Bruce’s body, burrowing deeper into the smell of him. 

“No more than loving you does,” Bruce says. Tony presses his mouth to the nape of Bruce’s neck and they sit like that for a long time, breathing together, letting words sit unspoken.

The shades begin to lower once more, and the New York night recedes. Bruce slides the guns back into their holsters, back into their velvet, back into their box with a sense of reverence, of ritual and turns into Tony’s arms after he slides the box to the bedstead.

“Sarò solo un arma nel vostro arsenale,” Tony whispers and Bruce reaches out, hooks a thumb under Tony’s chin, and kisses so deep Tony feels like he’s drowning, like Bruce is showing him his whole galaxy in the chaste, slow slide of his tongue. 

“I don’t deserve you, Stark,” Bruce replies. “Not at all.” 

“You know, I’ll just point out now that it would be totally appropriate to show your gratitude in sexual favors,” Tony grins. 

“You’ll have to take a rain check, I’m afraid,” Bruce says. “There isn’t enough time.” 

“Why you always gotta leave me, McAdams?” Tony asks. “Alternatively, is there any way I could get that rain check to specify a date and time, so we can have a hot date and even hotter sex and maybe grab some late night tea rolls and talk presidential politics with your girl crush? You know I can make it happen if we just coordinate…” 

Bruce lays behind him, slides in close, aligns the curves of his body with Tony’s until they’re together head to toe. Bruce holds him as if he’s holding a lotus flower, a pint glass in Amsterdam, a chocolate truffle in Monte Carlo. Like he’s strong, and yet under the right circumstances Tony will melt away. 

“You won’t be here when I wake up,” Tony says, the realization bitter in his throat, “will you?” 

“No, Tony. I won’t.” Bruce says, softly. “Not when you wake up tomorrow. And probably not the next day either.”

“Oh,” for a moment, there’s a feeling of nothing but angst, hatred, self-pity and Tony’s hands reach down to wind fingers into Bruce’s. “Be safe?” 

“I’ll be home soon,” Bruce continues. “Trust me.” 

“With my life, Pistachio.” Tony says as he yawns and curls in and reluctantly falls asleep. 

In the morning, the bed’s empty. The box is gone. All that remains of Bruce is the smell of his soap on the sheets and his phone pressed into Tony’s palm. Tony’s customary first coffee of the day is hot and resting on the little conveyor bot Tony built especially for the purpose. 

“JARVIS,” Tony says as he rolls over, nuzzles in for one final smell of Bruce’s shampoo. “Have the linens changed today, synch Banner’s phone, copy all his playlists to my profile and then replace all his music with whatever you can find with dolphins, scan the Aston for engine bay dimensions so we can use it to replace the car that flushed out, and let Ms. Lewis know that she can find me in the Green staff commissary.” 

“An impressive list, sir,” JARVIS’ soft voice filters through the bedroom speakers. “I only hope Doctor Banner enjoys a good practical joke as much as you do.” 

“Well, no better way to confirm a thesis than to test it, don’t you think?” Tony throws the sheets off himself, gets up and pads into the closet. 

He’ll climb a little higher up that mountain, today.

**Author's Note:**

> "Stoichiometry" is the sect of chemistry that studies amounts of substances that are involved in reactions. Quote Stephanometra: 'balance first, computation second, answers third.'


End file.
